Elekta,  a human care company pioneering significant innovations and clinical solutions for treating cancer and brain disorders, has introduced its new Leksell Gamma Knife Icon.  With the introduction, the benefits of precision cranial radiosurgery are now available for more patients with a wider variety of brain tumor types and sizes.

This latest generation stereotactic radiosurgery system for the brain, integrates advanced motion management, dose delivery and imaging technologies, significantly increasing the versatility of Gamma Knife radiosurgery. Elekta unveiled Leksell Gamma Knife Icon at the 3rd ESTRO Forum in Barcelona.

“This is great news for patients,” said Niklas Savander, Elekta president and chief executive officer. “With the new functionality in Leksell Gamma Knife Icon, doctors will have even greater flexibility in how radiosurgery is delivered, in addition to more assurance about the radiation dose and how accurately it’s targeted. This new Leksell Gamma Knife will further strengthen our leading position in radiosurgery and hopefully address some of the more complex brain disorders from which many people suffer.”

Icon provides this increased flexibility by allowing physicians to choose either frame-based or frameless methods to immobilise the patient’s head, in addition to the option to perform the treatment in a single session or multiple sessions (fractions or hypofractionation). The system even enables clinicians to choose the degree of precision needed for each patient’s case – ranging from traditional radiosurgery accuracy to ultra-precise microradiosurgery.

“With Leksell Gamma Knife Icon, we expect two major changes,” said professor Jean Régis, a neurosurgeon and Gamma Knife programme director at University Hospital La Timone (Marseilles, France).

“First, the system will increase indications, in the sense that we will be able do more hypofractionation. The second great benefit of Icon is the ability to do true adaptive radiosurgery both interfraction and intrafraction. It has the capacity to detect and measure position changes – to automatically propose dose planning adaptation – while providing the operator with an estimate of the influence of these corrections for validation."

Elekta developed Icon to be the preferred modality to treat almost any intracranial target. It offers new functionality familiar to radiation oncologists, such as cone beam CT, which should help increase the adoption of radiosurgery. By being attractive to more clinics, more patients will have access to the benefits of precision cranial radiosurgery.

Maurits Wolleswinkel, executive vice president, Neuroscience at Elekta, said “By giving doctors greater clinical flexibility and precision, it should also give patients greater confidence and peace of mind. This system is intended to give physicians the ability and confidence to treat virtually any pathology found in the brain with the highest precision and certainty, and the efficient workflows that will allow them to do this every day in the clinic,” he said.

Leksell Gamma Knife Icon is not for sale or distribution in the US and is not CE marked.

Elekta is a human care company pioneering significant innovations and clinical solutions for treating cancer and brain disorders. The company develops sophisticated, state-of-the-art tools and treatment planning systems for radiation therapy, radiosurgery and brachytherapy, as well as workflow enhancing software systems across the spectrum of cancer care.