• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 1992

Between August 1988 and December 1991, 24 patients with intracranial tumors were treated with stereotactic radiosurgery(RS) using a 10 MV linear accelerator at Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine. There were 5 meningiomas, 3 craniopharyngiomas, 9 glial tumors, 2 solitary metastases, 2 acoustic neurinomas, 2 pineal tumors, and 1 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Ten patients were treated as primary treatment after diagnosis with stereotactic biopsy or neuroimaging study. Nine patients underwent RS for post-op. residual tumors and three patients as a salvage treatment for recurrence after external irradiation. Two patients received RS as a boost followed by fractionated conventional radiotherapy. Among sixteen patients who were followed more than 6 months with neuroimage, seven patients (2 meningiomas, 4 benign glial tumors, one non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) showed complete response on neuroimage after RS and nine patients showed decreased tumor size. There was no acute treatment related side reaction. Late complications include three patients with symptomatic peritumoral brain edema and one craniopharyngioma with optic chiasmal injury. Through this early experience, we conclude that stereotactically directed single high doses of irradiation to the small intracranial tumors is effective for tumor control. However, in order to define the role of radiosurgery in the management of intracraniai tumors, we should get the long-term results available to demonstrate the benefits versus potential complications of this therapeutic modality.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.101-108
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• 2016

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Retro recon in SRS planning using BranLAB when stereotactic location error occurs by metal artifact. Materials and Methods : By CT simulator, image were acquired from head phantom(CIRS, PTW, USA). To observe stereotactic location recognizing and beam hardening, CT image were approved by SRS planning system(BrainLAB, Feldkirchen, Germany). In addition, we compared acquisition image(1.25mm slice thickness) and Retro recon image(using for 2.5 mm, 5mm slice thickness). To evaluate these three images quality, the test were performed by AAPM phantom study. In patient, it was verified stereotactic location error. Results : All the location recognizing error did not occur in scanned image of phantom. AAPM phantom scan images all showed the same trend. Contrast resolution and Spatial resolution are under 6.4 mm, 1.0 mm. In case of noise and uniformity, under 11, 5 of HU were measured. In patient, the stereotactic location error was not occurred at reconstructive image. Conclusion : For BrainLAB planning, using Retro recon were corrected stereotactic error at beam hardening. Retro recon may be the preferred modality for radiation treatment planning and approving image quality.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.61-66
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• 2010

In this paper we evaluated small field dose characteristics of exclusive cone fields versus square fields for stereotactic radiosugery (SRS) which is based on linear accelerators (LINAC). For this test, we used a small beam detector (stereotactic fields detector : SFD) with a 6 MV photon beam and a water phantom system (IBA, Germany). Percentage depth dose (PDD) was measured for different field sets (cones : ${\Phi}1\;cm$, ${\Phi}2\;cm$, ${\Phi}3\;cm$ ; square fields : $1{\times}1\;cm^2$, $2{\times}2\;cm^2$, $3{\times}3\;cm^2$) at a source skin distance (SSD) of 100 cm. We measured the point depths at 1.5 cm, 5 cm, 10 cm, 20 cm, and 30 cm. The output factors were measured under the same geometrical conditions of the PDD and normalized at the maximum dose depth. To analyze the penumbra, we measured the dose profile with 95 cm of SSD, 5 cm of depth for each field sizes (${\Phi}1\;cm$, ${\Phi}3\;cm$, $1{\times}1\;cm^2$, and $3{\times}3\;cm^2$) using SFD. We obtained the values for every 1 mm interval in the physical field (90%) and 0.5 mm interval in the penumbra region (20 to 80%). The PDD variation of exclusive cones and square fields were 4.3 to 7.9% lesser than the standard field size ($10{\times}10\;cm^2$. The variation of PDD was reduced while the field size was increased. To compare the beam quality, we analyzed the $PDD_{20,10}$ and the results showed under the 1% of variations for all experiments except for ${\Phi}1\;cm$ cone and $1{\times}1\;cm^2$ fields. Output factors of exclusive cone were increased 3.1~4.6% than the square fields, and the penumbra region of exclusive cone was reduced 20% as compared to the square fields. As the previous researches report, it is very important for SRS and SFD that precise dosimetry in small beam fields. In this paper, we showed the effectiveness of exclusive cone, compared to square field. And we will study on the various detector characteristics for small beam fields.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.185-194
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• 1998

Purpose : With the development of stereotactic immobilization systems capable of reliable serial repositioning, fractionated stereotactic radiation therapy (FSRT) offers the Potential for an improved treatment outcome by excellent dose delivery, and dose distribution characteristics with the favorable radiobiological properties of fractionated irradiation. We describe our initial experience using FSRT for the treatment of intracranial benign tumor. Materials and Methods : Between August 1995 and December 1996. 15 patients(7 males and 8 females aged 6-70 years) were treated with FSRT. The patients had the following diagnosis pituitary adenoma(10) including one patient who previously had received radiotherapy, craniopharyngioma (2), acoustic neurinoma (1), meningioma (2). Using the Gill-Thomas-Cosman relocatable head frame and multiple non-coplanar therapy, the daily dose of 2Gy was irradiated at 90% to 100% isodose surface of the isocenter The collimator sizes ranged from 26mm to 70mm. Results : In all patients except one follow-up lost, disease was well-controlled. Acute complication was negligible and no patient experienced cranial nerve neuropathies and radiation necrosis. In overall patient setup with scalp measurements, reproducibility was found to have mean of $1.1{\pm}0.6mm$ from the baseline reading. Conclusion : Relocatable stereotactic system for FSRT is highly reproducible and comfortable. Although the follow-up period was relatively short. FSRT is considered to be a safe and effective radiation technique as the treatment of intracranial tumor. But the fractionation schedule(fraction size, overall treatment time and total dose) still remains to be solved by further clinical trials.

• Korean Journal of Head & Neck Oncology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.156-163
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• 1998

Background & Objectives: Frameless fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy(FFSRT) is a modification of stereotactic radiosurgery(SRS) with radiobiologic advantage of fractionation without losing mechanical accuracy of SRS. Local recurrence of head and neck cancer at or near skull base benefit from reirradiation. Main barrier to successful palliation is dose limitation secondary to normal tissue tolerance. We try to evaluate the efficacy and safety of FFSRT as a new modality of reirradaton in these challenging patients. Materials & Methods: Seven patients with recurrent head & neck cancer involving at or near skull base received FFSRT from September 1995 to November 1997. Six patients with nasopharyngeal cancer had received induction chemotherapy and curative radiation therapy. One patient with maxillary sinus cancer had received total maxillectomy and postoperative radiation therapy as a initial treatment. Follow-up ranged from 11 to 32 months with median of 24 months. Three of 7 patients received hyperfractionated radiation therapy(1.1-1.2Gy/fraction, bid, total 19.8-24Gy) just before FFSRT. All patients received FFSRT(3-5Gy/fraction, total 15-30Gy/5-10fractions). Chemotherapy(cis-platin $100mg/m^2$) were given concurrently with FFSRT in four patients. Second course of FFSRT were given in 4 patients with progression or recurrence after initial FFSRT. Because IF(irregularity factor; ratio of surface area of target to the surface area of sphere with same volume as a target) is too big to use conventional stereotactic RT using multiple arc method for protection of radiation damage to critical normal tissue, all patients received FFSRT with conformal method using irregular static ports. Results: Five of 7 patients showed complete remission in follow-up CT &/or MRI. Three of these five patients who developed marginal, in-field, and out-field recurrences, respectively. Another one of complete responders has been dead of G-I bleeding without evidence of local recurrence. One partial responder who showed progressive disease 15 months after initial FFSRT has received additional FFSRT, and then he is well-being with symptomatic improvement. One minmal responder who showed progression of locoregional disease 9 months after $1^{st}$ FFSRT has received 2nd FFSRT, and then he is alive with stable disease. Five of 7 case had showed direct invasion to skull base and had complaint headache and various symptoms of cranial nerve involvement. Four of these five case showed improvement of neurologic symptoms after FFSRT. No significant neurologic complicaltion related to FFSRT was observed during follow-up periods. Tumor volumes were ranged from 3.9 to 50.7 cc and surface area ranged from 16.1 to $114.9cm^2$. IF ranged from 1.21 to 1.74. The average ratio of volume of prescription isodose shell to target volume was 1.02 that indicated the improvement of target coverage and dose distribution with FFSRT with conformal method compared to target coverage with FFSRT with multiple arc method. Conclusion: Our initial experience suggests that FFSRT with conformal method was relatively effective and safe modality in the treatment of recurrent head and neck cancer involving at or near skull base. Treatment benefit included good palliation of symptoms and reasonable radiographic response. However, more experience and additional follow-up are needed to better assess its ultimate role in treating these challenging patients.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2006

Puroose: In order to find out whether stereotactic radiation therapy (RT) using CyberKnife (CK) could improve survival rate and lower acute toxicity compared to conventional RT. Materials and Methods: From April 2003 through April 2004, 19 patients with Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status ${\leq}3$ and locally advanced pancreas cancer without distant metastasis, evaluated by CT or PET/CT, were included. We administered stereotactic RT consisting of either 33 Gy, 36 Gy or 39 Gy in 3 fractions to 6, 4 and 9 patients, respectively, in an effort to increase the radiation dose step by step, and analyzed the survival rate and gastrointestinal toxicities by the acute radiation morbidity criteria of Radiation Therapeutic Oncology Group (RTOG). Prognostic factors of age, sex, ECOG performance score, chemotherapy, bypass surgery, radiation dose, CA 19-9, planning target volume (PTV), and adjacent organ and vessel invasion on CT scan were evaluated by Log Rank test. Results: The median survival time was 11 months with 1-year survival rate of 36.8%. During follow-up period (range $3{\sim}20$ months, median 10 months), no significant gastrointestinal acute toxicity (RTOG grade 3) was observed. In univariate analysis, age, sex, ECOG performance score, chemotherapy, bypass surgery, radiation dose, CA 19-9 level, and adjacent organ and vessel invasion did not show any significant changes of survival rate, however, patients with PTV (80 cc showed more favorable survival rate than those with PTV>80 cc (p-value<0.05). In multivariate analysis, age younger than 65 years and PTV>80 cc showed better survival rate. Conclusion: In terms of survival, the efficacy of stereotactic radiation therapy using CK was found to be superior or similar to other recent studies achieved with conventional RT with intensive chemotherapy, high dose conformal RT, intraoperative RT (IORT), or intensity modulated RT (IMRT). Furthermore, severe toxicity was not observed. Short treatment time in relation to the short life expectancy gave patients more convenience and, finally, quality of life would be increased. Consequently, this could be regarded as an effective novel treatment modality for locally advanced, unresectable pancreas cancer. PTV would be a helpful prognostic factor for CK.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.801-809
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• 2019

Existing Gamma Knife Radiosurgery(GKRS) for large lesions is often conducted in stages with volume or dose partitions. Often in case of volume division the target used to be divided into sub-volumes which are irradiated under the determined prescription dose in multi-sessions separated by a day or two, 3~6 months. For the entire course of treatment, treatment informations of the previous stages needs to be reflected to subsequent sessions on the newly mounted stereotactic frame through coordinate transformation between sessions. However, it is practically difficult to implement the previous dose distributions with existing Gamma Knife system except in the same stereotactic space. The treatment area is expanding because it is possible to perform the multistage treatment using the latest Gamma Knife Platform(GKP). The purpose of this study is to introduce the image-coregistration based on the stereotactic spaces and the strategy of multistage GKRS such as the determination of prescription dose at each stage using new GKP. Usually in image-coregistration either surgically-embedded fiducials or internal anatomical landmarks are used to determine the transformation relationship. Author compared the accuracy of coordinate transformation between multi-sessions using four or six anatomical landmarks as an example using internal anatomical landmarks. Transformation matrix between two stereotactic spaces was determined using PseudoInverse or Singular Value Decomposition to minimize the discrepancy between measured and calculated coordinates. To evaluate the transformation accuracy, the difference between measured and transformed coordinates, i.e., ${\Delta}r$, was calculated using 10 landmarks. Four or six points among 10 landmarks were used to determine the coordinate transformation, and the rest were used to evaluate the approaching method. Each of the values of ${\Delta}r$ in two approaching methods ranged from 0.6 mm to 2.4 mm, from 0.17 mm to 0.57 mm. In addition, a method of determining the prescription dose to give the same effect as the treatment of the total lesion once in case of lesion splitting was suggested. The strategy of multistage treatment in the same stereotactic space is to design the treatment for the whole lesion first, and the whole treatment design shots are divided into shots of each stage treatment to construct shots of each stage and determine the appropriate prescription dose at each stage. In conclusion, author confirmed the accuracy of prescribing dose determination as a multistage treatment strategy and found that using as many internal landmarks as possible than using small landmarks to determine coordinate transformation between multi-sessions yielded better results. In the future, the proposed multistage treatment strategy will be a great contributor to the frameless fractionated treatment of several Gamma Knife Centers.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.33
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• pp.99-108
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• 2021

Purpose: The goal of this study is to evaluate usefulness of noninvasive method instead of previous inserting Fiducial Marker Method when performing Stereotactic Partial Breast Irradiation in CyberKnife. Material and methods: For consistency of Imaging Center, we evaluated both oblique images at angle 45 and 315 acquired from 2D Simulator and CyberKnife quantitatively through dice similarity coefficient. Also, location reproducibility of Surface Fiducial Marker was analyzed from 2D Simulator, treatment plans and CyberKinfe images by using 8 Fiducial Markers made of gold attached to ATOM Phantom based on our institution's protocols. Results: The results of the estimated consistency were 0.87 and 0.9 at the oblique angle 45 and 315, respectively. For location consistency of Surface Fiducial Markers, values of horizontal vertical direction of left breast were Superior/Inferior 0.3 mm, Left/Right -0.3 mm, Anterior/Posterior 0.4 mm, and the values of rotational direction were Roll 0.3 °, Pitch 0.2 °, Yaw 0.4 °. The values of horizontal vertical direction of right breast were Superior/Inferior -0.1 mm, Left/Right -0.1 mm, Anterior/Posterior -0.1 mm, and the values of rotational direction were Roll 0.2°, Pitch 0.1°, Yaw 0.1°. Conclusions: We expect that the protocols used by Surface Fiducial Markers when performing Stereotactic Partial Breast Irradiation in CyberKnife will provide protection from pain and cut expenses for treatment and reduce treatment errors and make treatment more accurate by suggesting treatment protocols based on high consistency of Imaging Center and reproducibility of Fiducial Markers.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1901-1906
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• 2015

Background: Brain metastases occur in about 20-40% of patients with non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), and are usually associated with a poor outcome. Whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT) is widely used but increasingly, more aggressive local treatments such as surgery or stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) or stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) are being employed. In our study we aimed to describe the various factors affecting outcomes in NSCLC patients receiving local therapy for brain metastases. Materials and Methods: The case records of 125 patients with NSCLC and brain metastases consecutively treated with radiotherapy at two tertiary centres from January 2006 to June 2012 were analysed for patient, tumour and treatment-related prognostic factors. Patients receiving SRS/SRT were treated using Cyberknife. Variables were examined in univariate and multivariate testing. Results: Overall median survival was 3.4 months (95%CI: 1.7-5.1). Median survival for patients with multiple metastases receiving WBRT was 1.5 months, 1-3 metastases receiving WBRT was 3.6 months and 1-3 metastases receiving surgery or SRS/SRT was 8.9 months. ECOG score (${\leq}2$ vs >2, p=0.001), presence of seizure (yes versus no, p=0.031), treatment modality according to number of brain metastases (1-3 metastases+surgery or $SRS/SRT{\pm}WBRT$ vs 1-3 metastases+WBRT only vs multiple metastases+WBRT only, p=0.007) and the use of post-therapy systemic treatment (yes versus no, p=0.001) emerged as significant on univariate analysis. All four factors remained statistically significant on multivariate analysis. Conclusions: ECOG ${\leq}2$, presence of seizures, oligometastatic disease treated with aggressive local therapy (surgery or SRS/SRT) and the use of post-therapy systemic treatment are favourable prognostic factors in NSCLC patients with brain metastases.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.336-341
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• 2006

Objective : The authors conducted a retrospective study to evaluate the preservation rates of serviceable hearing and to determine its prognostic factors after gamma knife stereotactic radiosurgery[GK SRS] in the patient with vestibular schwannomas. Methods : Between December 1997 and March 2005, 54 patients with a sporadic vestibular schwannoma and serviceable hearing [Gardner Robertson grade I-II] were enrolled in this study. Electronic database of medical records and radiological examinations before and after GK SRS were investigated to the last follow up. The mean marginal dose was $12.3{\pm}0.7Gy$. The mean maximum dose delivered to the tumor center was 24.7Gy [$22{\sim}30Gy$]. The median tumor volume was 2cc [$0.1{\sim}9.1cc$]. The median follow-up period of magnetic resonance[MR] imaging was 31 months [$6{\sim}99\;months$], and the mean follow-up period of audiometry was 24 months [$4{\sim}70\;months$]. Results : The tumor control rate was 100% in the patients with the follow up period more than 2 years. The trigeminal and facial nerve preservation rates were 98% and 100%, respectively. Twenty-eight [52%] of the 54 patients preserved serviceable hearing and 16 [30%] patients retained their pre-GK G-R grade level after GK SRS. In the univariate and multivariate analysis, there was no significant prognostic factor in preservation of the serviceable hearing. Conclusion : The hearing preservation rate is still unsatisfactory compared with the results of other cranial nerve preservation and tumor control in the treatment of vestibular schwannoma by GK SRS. More sophisticated strategy during and after GK SRS is necessary to improve long-term hearing preservation.