Jeremy Ganz – författare

Today, over 500,000 patients have been treated world wide in 250 Gamma Knife Centres in 37 countries each one treating between 150 and 700 patients a year. The current book serves as a textbook, training manual and reference book for those involved in Gamma Knife practice covering the theoretical background, the practical aspects of treatment, the social side of the method and necessary information not only for users but for those who refer to the Gamma Knife. It also covers some aspects of the hospital and social administration required for optimal use of the technology, also looking at the effect of the internet on specialist medical practice. It also presents the completely new Gamma Knife (Perfexion), a new technology which extends the range of the Gamma Knife and will be the treatment standard for the future.

Today, over 500,000 patients have been treated world wide in 250 Gamma Knife Centres in 37 countries each one treating between 150 and 700 patients a year. The current book serves as a textbook, training manual and reference book for those involved in Gamma Knife practice covering the theoretical background, the practical aspects of treatment, the social side of the method and necessary information not only for users but for those who refer to the Gamma Knife. It also covers some aspects of the hospital and social administration required for optimal use of the technology, also looking at the effect of the internet on specialist medical practice. It also presents the completely new Gamma Knife (Perfexion), a new technology which extends the range of the Gamma Knife and will be the treatment standard for the future.

The articles in this volume cover the various options of the optimal management of brain tumors, vascular lesions, and functional disorders. They provide a good balance between microneurosurgery and radiosurgery, presenting also alternative surgical and radiosurgical treatment options with discussions on their advantages and disadvantages. The presentation of multiple treatment methods will help to provide better service to patients. Some papers, specifically highlighting alternative treatment options, are accompanied by editorials prepared by recognized experts in the field. Additional emphasis is put on importance of the advanced neuroimaging techniques for radiosurgical treatment planning and subsequent follow-up.

The articles in this volume cover the various options of the optimal management of brain tumors, vascular lesions, and functional disorders. They provide a good balance between microneurosurgery and radiosurgery, presenting also alternative surgical and radiosurgical treatment options with discussions on their advantages and disadvantages. The presentation of multiple treatment methods will help to provide better service to patients. Some papers, specifically highlighting alternative treatment options, are accompanied by editorials prepared by recognized experts in the field. Additional emphasis is put on importance of the advanced neuroimaging techniques for radiosurgical treatment planning and subsequent follow-up.

Today, over 500,000 patients have been treated world wide in 250 Gamma Knife Centres in 37 countries each one treating between 150 and 700 patients a year. The current book serves as a textbook, training manual and reference book for those involved in Gamma Knife practice covering the theoretical background, the practical aspects of treatment, the social side of the method and necessary information not only for users but for those who refer to the Gamma Knife. It also covers some aspects of the hospital and social administration required for optimal use of the technology, also looking at the effect of the internet on specialist medical practice. It also presents the completely new Gamma Knife (Perfexion), a new technology which extends the range of the Gamma Knife and will be the treatment standard for the future.

Radiosurgery has become an established technique, with more than 15000 patients treated world-wide, most of them in the last five years. Yet, there is much uncertainty in the general medical community as to the nature, advantages and limitations of the method. This uncertainty provokes unnecessary debate between colleagues and is a source of avoidable stress to patients.This book provides an account of the scientific basis of radiosurgery and describes its current applications in respect of the only well established radiosurgical device, the Leksell Gamma Knife. The book assumes the general medical knowledge of a newly qualified medical practitioner.There are three sections. The first outlines the rationale for radiosurgery and the principles of stereotaxy, radiophysics and radiobiology. The middle section, consisting of a single chapter, describes what a potential patient may expect to experience. In the final section, the current applications are gone through, one by one,indicating what can and what cannot be achieved. The book is intended for neurologists, neurosurgeons, internists, otolaryngologists, oncologists, ophthalmologists, general practitioners, medical students and anyone else who might wish to refer a patient to or advise a patient about Gamma Knife radiosurgery.

This book attempts to combine many different threads into a comprehensible whole. Since the subject is the Gamma Knife and the author is a neurosurgeon, the field of clinical interest is restricted to intracranial pathology. The discipline of radiosurgery now applies to patients who may reasonably be referred by internists, neurologists, otolaryngologists, endocrinologists and several others. Some of the topics, touched upon, such as stereotaxy and the construction of a radio surgical instrument are unfamiliar to the majority of medical men. Other topics, such as those pertaining to the reactions between radiation and living tissue, are not exactly unfamiliar and yet, for most of us, they are not comfortable areas of expertise: in that we have some basic knowledge but not enough to draw conclusions and interpret. In particular, it is not easy to answer the very sensible questions that patients ask, when being considered for this particular form of treatment. The author has attempted to describe the basic relevant phenomenology in terms that should be readily understandable to a non-specialist physician. To do this, he has been heavily dependent on the expertise of a number of mathematically sophisticated collaborators, who have checked his manuscript. They are named in the acknowledgments section. The relevance of the different sections of this book will naturally be assessed differently, according to the experience and interest of the reader. To simplifY access to the information that is required, the book is divided into three main sections.