Physical and Biological Background of Radiosurgery

ABSTRACT

Radiosurgery is a highly precise form of radiation therapy for the treatment of vascular lesions, certain primary or metastatic neoplasms, or functional disorders. Either intracranial or extracranial, which are inaccessible or unsuitable for surgical or other management. As the basis of radiation physics for radiosurgery, this article introduces radiation history, the method of radiation production, interaction mode of radiations with human, transfer of radiation energy to the tissue, and dose planning to generate a desirable dose distribution on the target site. Biologically, the goal of radiosurgery is to cause a precise damage only to the limited tissue within the target volume without exceeding the acceptable rate of complications. As the therapeutic ratio is a function of the volume irradiated, the total dose and dose per fraction used, and the level of acceptable risk, radiation oncologists or practitioners should consider various radiobiologic factors when using radiosurgery to obtain the maximum therapeutic ratio.