Gamma Knife Machine

Stereotactic radiosurgery is a minimally invasive treatment option for a wide variety of intracranial tumors. It is most often used to treat metastatic brain tumors but is often useful in the treatment of meningiomas and acoustic neuromas as well other brain tumors. No incision is necessary for Gamma Knife radiosurgery and the patient does not need to undergo general anesthesia. This treatment makes use of highly collimated (focused) beams of radiation that deliver a lethal dose of radiation to the tumor while minimizing radiation exposure to the surrounding brain. In addition to the advantage of being minimally invasive, radiosurgery has the ability to treat multiple tumors simultaneously. A patient with multiple intracranial metastatic tumors for instance, can be treated with radiosurgery in one session. It is also an outpatient procedure, so the patient is discharged home on the day of treatment and can usually resume normal activities on the following day. Radiosurgery is performed jointly by a neurosurgeon and a radiation oncologist. Many factors are involved in deciding whether radiosurgery is an appropriate treatment for a given patient including tumor type, location, and size, as well as the number of tumors to be treated.

Mannequin in Gamma Knife head
frame and collimator

The following surgeons at NYU perform Gamma Knife for brain tumors in adults:

John Golfinos, MD
Erik Parker, MD
Stephen Russell, MD

Please refer to cerebrovascular and pediatric sections for surgeons who perform Gamma Knife for AVMs and in for tumors in children