The use of stereotactic radiosurgery to treat neurological tumors.

Stereotactic radiosurgery is the precise delivery of a single dose of radiation to a well-defined intracranial volume. The radiation field is contoured to encompass the entire pathologic entity. Radiosurgery is used to treat a wide variety of neurological diseases as either primary or adjuvant therapy. It is a noninvasive and sometimes curative treatment for some brain tumors and inoperable arteriovenous malformations. Radiosurgery can also be used for inaccessible benign neoplasms or in medically unstable patients unable to withstand surgery. This article reviews the literature pertaining to stereotactic radiosurgery and includes our preliminary data from radiosurgery treatments at the University of Minnesota Hospital and Clinic (now Fairview-University Medical Center).