Brain Tumors Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Brain Tumors, including details on symptoms, benign and malignant tumors, gliomas, screening, treatment.

A method for repositioning of stereotactic brain patients with the aid of real-time CT image guidance.

Paskalev K, Feigenberg S, Wang L, Movsas B, Laske D, Ma C

Department of Radiation Oncology Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA 19111, USA. K_Paskalev@fccc.edu

This note presents a method that recalculates the coordinates of the isocentre for patients undergoing stereotactic radiotherapy to the brain with a relocatable head frame based on a pre-treatment CT scan. The method was evaluated by comparing initial stereotactic coordinates of the isocentre with the recalculated coordinates for eight single-fraction patients. These patients had the Brown-Roberts-Wells (BRW) frame fixed to the outer table of the skull, and therefore the coordinates of any anatomical point should be identical between the initial scan and the pre-treatment scan. The differences between the two sets of coordinates were attributed to errors in the method. The results showed that the systematic errors in the recalculated coordinates were less than 0.05 mm, and they were not statistically significant. The random errors (one standard deviation) were from 0.35 mm (lateral) to 0.58 mm (vertical). The average value of the combined 3D difference was 0.75 mm.

Published 3 August 2005 in Phys Med Biol, 50(16): N201-7.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Brain Tumors Research Today. All Rights Reserved.