New Gamma Knife Treats Precise Cranial Targets

A novel stereotactic radiosurgery system integrates advanced motion management, dose delivery, and imaging technologies for brain surgery.

The Leksell Gamma Knife Icon is a precision radiosurgery system that is capable of treating virtually any target in the brain, regardless of type, location, or volume. The system offers stereotactic imaging, online adaptive dose control, ultra-precise dose delivery, and high-definition motion management to ensure precise treatments. One of the most important features of the system is the ability to offer both frame-based and frameless methods of immobilizing the patient’s head. It also offers the option to perform treatments in single or multiple sessions (hypofractionation).


Due to efficient workflow integration, the system has the capacity to detect and measure position changes, automatically propose dose planning adaptation, and provide an estimate of the influence of the corrections for validation. The system also enables clinicians to choose the degree of precision needed for each patient’s case, ranging from traditional radiosurgery accuracy to ultra-precise microradiosurgery, similar to a CT cone-beam. The Leksell Gamma Knife Icon is a product of Elekta (Stockholm, Sweden), and has received the European community (CE) mark of approval.

“Leksell Gamma Knife Icon is a new concept for performing precision radiosurgery for all types of cranial cases with unlimited clinical and workflow flexibility, as well as the option to perform the treatment in a single session or in multiple sessions,” said Tomas Puusepp, president and CEO of Elekta. “Icon is also based on the only technology available that can perform ultra-precise microradiosurgery for the cases where this is required.”

“With Leksell Gamma Knife Icon, we expect two major changes; first, the system will increase indications, in the sense that we will be able do more hypofractionation,” said neurosurgeon Prof. Jean Régis, MD, Gamma Knife program director at University Hospital La Timone (Marseilles, France). “The second great benefit of Icon is the ability to do true adaptive radiosurgery both interfraction and intrafraction.”

A Gamma Knife typically contains 201 cobalt-60 sources of approximately 30 curies each, placed in a circular array in a heavily shielded assembly. The device aims high-intensity cobalt gamma radiation via a helmet that is fixed to the skull, so that the brain tumor remains stationary at the target point. Since individual beams are of a relatively low intensity, the radiation has little effect on intervening brain tissue, and is concentrated only at the tumor itself.

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