SACRAMENTO, California, March 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Elekta, a leading supplier of advanced and innovative radiation oncology and neurosurgery systems, today announced that its Leksell Gamma Knife® Icon™, the most precise stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) system currently available, was used for the first time in the U.S. on March 1 at Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento Gamma Knife Center to treat a metastatic brain tumor.

The patient, a 52-year-old male, from El Dorado Hills, Calif., had previously undergone successful treatment for primary melanoma and for melanoma metastases to his lung. The patient's treatment was planned and guided using a frameless approach. The frameless mask solution is one of several new features of Icon and is integrated with a novel high definition motion management. The system provides accuracy similar to that of frame-based SRS systems while minimizing dose to normal tissue.

"Increasing the precision of frameless cranial SRS is essential for effectively targeting tumor tissue while protecting healthy brain tissue from damage," said Samuel Ciricillo, MD, Medical Director of Adult and Pediatric Neurosurgery at Sutter Neuroscience Institute. "The new Gamma Knife system, Icon, now provides the most accurate motion tracking during treatment. Additionally, with Gamma Knife there is a two- to four-fold improvement in sparing normal brain tissue compared to other linear accelerator platforms. These features allow for greater potential to protect patient quality of life both during treatment and after recovery."
Icon is the latest advance in Elekta's Gamma Knife radiosurgery, the most clinically proven radiosurgery technique. The system will make cranial SRS available to more patients and to improve the efficacy of cranial SRS with fewer side effects. Icon also provides the flexibility for single dose administration or multiple treatment sessions over time, which enables treatment of larger tumor volumes, targets close to critical brain structures and new or recurring brain metastases.

At the time of SRS, pre-treatment MRI images and CBCT images are aligned to identify precise coordinates for radiation targeting within the brain. This technology is especially important for patients who undergo multiple treatment sessions. Because the CBCT images are based on fixed structures within the brain, they ensure that dosage and delivery area are calculated correctly for each session, even if the patient's head is in a slightly different position from one treatment session to another.

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