Assessment of different methods of head fixation for leksell gamma knife patients

Abstract

Author(s): Tabarek Ali Al-Nuwab*, Mustafa S Al-Musawi and Moneer K Faraj

Introduction: Families of disorders known as cancer are characterized by uncontrolled cell development and have the ability to spread or metastasis throughout the body. An essential and crucial part of cancer treatment is radiation therapy. High energy radiation is used to the cancerous tissues during radiation therapy to destroy the cancerous cells. Various intracranial targets have been treated with stereotactic radiosurgery with the leksell gamma knife for many years.

Purpose: The most recent leksell Gamma Knife (GK) generation supports both frame based and frameless techniques. In current study search the appropriate material to made anew fixation tool to solve the problem found in the others fixation tool used in gamma knife.

Materials and methods: Thirty patients with Trigeminal Neuralgia (TN) underwent GK radiosurgery employing the GK version 11.3.1 (Icon) elekta. In the present research, the decision for 3D mask fixation or thermoplastic mask was made on a case by case basis with patients' preferences taken into consideration. The 3D mask's material is checked to make sure it won't cause problems with treatment before it is put on the patients. The elekta spherical phantom is used with an ionization chamber device (PTW Semi flex 3D 31021) applied to it in order to assess the dose rate for each fixation tool.

Results: The ionization devices (PTW Semi flex 3D 31021) was used to compare dose rate for the 3D mask and thermoplastic. The dose rate for the 3D mask and thermoplastic are 0.0131, so that's a significant difference at level ≤ 0.05.

Conclusion: The 3D masks provide same results of thermoplastic for dose rate according to the test of ionization chamber that used in current study.

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