BJMO - volume 10, issue 2, april 2016
D. Van Brummelen MD, R. Van den Begin MD, B. Engels MD, PhD, C. Collen MD, T. Gevaert MD, PhD, D. Verellen PhD, G. Storme MD, PhD, M. De Ridder MD, PhD
Most metastatic cancer patients pass through an oligometastatic disease phase. Management of oligometastatic cancer is changing due to the increasing application of local treatments, leading to longer disease control and, in some cases, even cure. This paper discusses stereotactic radiotherapy as a progressively more effective treatment of oligometastatic cancer due to technological developments enabling the specific delivery of higher radiation doses to the tumour itself, more insight in disease-related factors influencing its effectiveness, and its potential of synergy with immunotherapy.
(BELG J MED ONCOL 2016;10(2):58–62)
Read moreBJMO - volume 7, issue 3, july 2013
T. Gevaert MD, PhD, D. Verellen PhD, B. Engels MD, PhD, J. D’Haens MD, PhD, M. De Ridder MD, PhD
Stereotactic radiosurgery is a treatment technique that uses a single high ablative dose of radiation to benign and malignant laesions while sparing healthy brain tissue. Several systems have been developed to perform this technique, and these differed in the way the irradiation was performed. An accurate positioning, immobilisation of the patient and a precise localisation of the laesion are essential. Traditionally, this was performed with a headring screwed onto the patient’s skull (frame-based technique). The positioning is achieved using a localiserbox, mounted on the invasive headring and stereotactic coordinates, obtained through the planning system. With recent developments in radiotherapy, this high precision positioning can nowadays also be performed without the invasive headring. This non-invasive approach, called frameless, improves patient comfort and uses a mask system to immobilise the patient and image-guidance to accurately position the patient on the basis of anatomy. The Novalis system (Brainlab AG) at the UZ Brussel can use both a frame-based and frameless approach. Frameless radiosurgery is carried out with a mask device and two stereoscopic x-ray images. This innovative frameless positioning technique showed equivalent positioning accuracy and immobilisation characteristics to the invasive frame-based technique.
(BELG J MED ONCOL 2013;7(3):93–97)
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