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Gamma Knife Radiosurgery

The Gamma Knife® is a powerful tool that enables the neurosurgeon to focus 201 beams of energy to any location inside the brain. By focusing the intersecting beams, the radiosurgery team can target a region of the brain while limiting exposure to surrounding, normal brain tissue.

Gamma knife radiosurgery for epilepsy

While more commonly used to treat children with brain tumors and arteriovenous malformations, the Gamma Knife is also used to treat some patients with epilepsy. Indications include:

  • Deep-seated hypothalamic hamartomas
  • Certain epileptogenic lesions
  • Functional disconnections such as corpus callosotomy

Gamma knife radiosurgery: what to expect

  • The Gamma Knife treatment is an outpatient procedure, performed non-invasively with no incisions.
  • The treatment itself is quiet and painless, although placement of the reference frame on to the child’s head may require the involvement of the pediatric anesthesia team to assure the comfort of the child during all phases of treatment.

Targeting plan used to perform a posterior corpus callosotomy in a 10 year old boy, using the Gamma Knife

Gamma Knife Radiosurgery

Selected publications and abstracts from our faculty

  1. Smyth MD, Sneed PK, Ciricillo SF, Edwards MS, Wara WM, Larson DA, Lawton MT, Gutin PH and McDermott MW. Stereotactic Radiosurgery for Pediatric Intracranial Arteriovenous Malformations: The UCSF Experience. Journal of Neurosurgery 97:48-55; 2002.
  2. Smyth MD, Klein E, Dodson WE, Mansur D: Radiosurgical posterior corpus callosotomy in a child with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. Journal of Neurosurgery:Pediatrics, 106(4):312-315, 2007.
  3. Smyth MD, Park E, Sneed P, Lawton M, McDermott MW. Stereotactic Radiosurgery for Pediatric Intracranial Arteriovenous Malformations. Presented to the AANS/CNS Joint Pediatric Section, San Diego CA, 2000.
  4. Smyth MD, Klein E, Dodson E, Mansur D: Radiosurgical transection of the posterior corpus callosum in a child with epilepsy. Presented to the International Stereotactic Radiosurgery Society, San Francisco CA 2007.
  5. Zhao H, Drzymala RE, Klein EE, Smyth MD, Mansur DB. Peripheral dose investigation of a corpus callosotomy by Gamma Knife, Model C. & Perfexion. Presented to the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, Houston TX, July 2008.