What is stereotactic radiation therapy?
Stereotactic technology is an advanced form of external beam radiation therapy used to treat specific tumour or disease types with a low number of treatment sessions (typically 1 – 5), commonly located in the brain, spine, lung, liver, pancreas, kidney, prostate, as well as other areas of the body as determined by the patients oncologist.
Stereotactic radiation therapy (SRT) can also be referred to as stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), stereotactic ablative radiation therapy (SABR), or stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS). It is characterised by treating a well-defined volume with very high precision using a high dose of radiation and with a small number of treatment sessions. For example, a typical external beam radiation therapy treatment will be delivered using up to around 30 treatment sessions, whereas a stereotactic radiation therapy treatment will be delivered in up to 5 treatment sessions.
It can be used to treat both primary disease and metastatic disease (sometimes referred to as secondary tumours). These are tumours that have spread from other organs in the body and cancers in the brain, spine, bones, liver and lung.
