Elekta's Leksell Gamma Knife Icon precision radiosurgery system CE marked

France's University Hospital La Timone first to install Leksell Gamma Knife Icon, Elekta's latest generation cranial radiosurgery system

Elekta has CE marked its Leksell Gamma Knife® Icon™ precision radiosurgery system, making this latest generation Leksell Gamma Knife platform available in the European market. With stereotactic imaging, online Adaptive DoseControl™, ultra-precise dose delivery and the availability of frameless treatments, Icon is capable of treating virtually any target in the brain, regardless of type, location or volume. The company also announced that University Hospital La Timone (Marseilles, France) had installed the first Icon and will use the system to treat the first patients in July.

"Leksell Gamma Knife Icon is a new concept for performing precision radiosurgery for all types of cranial cases with unlimited clinical and workflow flexibility," says Tomas Puusepp, President and CEO of Elekta. "Clinicians can choose either frame-based or frameless methods to immobilize the patient's head, as well as the option to perform the treatment in a single session or in multiple sessions. Icon is also based on the only technology available that can perform ultra-precise Microradiosurgery™ for the cases where this is required."

Puusepp adds that the system's online Adaptive DoseControl™ and high-definition motion management features ensure the most precise treatments possible, whether frame-based or frameless, as well as an efficient workflow thanks to the complete system and workflow integration.

Professor Jean Régis, MD, a neurosurgeon and program director for University Hospital La Timone's Gamma Knife program, says that Icon presents physicians with two significant opportunities related to the ability to use frameless immobilization.

"The first will be to enlarge the scope of indications by permitting hypofractionation [multiple treatment sessions] to be performed more readily, and also treatment of lesions in additional anatomical sites. This is by virtue of the capability to perform frameless treatments with much better technical control," he says. "The second opportunity is the ability to evaluate shifts in the patient's position and to adapt the dose proactively to account for these movements. This in particular, will push frameless, hypofractionated radiosurgery to a level that doesn't exist today."

University Hospital La Timone physicians are long-time users of the predecessor of Icon, Leksell Gamma Knife® Perfexion™, having been the world's first hospital to treat patients with the system in 2006. In 2010, the hospital used its Perfexion to deliver radiosurgery to the center's 10,000^th patient. University Hospital La Timone's Gamma Knifeprogram is 23-years-old and has employed four different versions of Leksell Gamma Knife.