Patient's question:
Child diagnosed with left parietal arteriovenous malformation and secondary infantile spasms at 6 monthsDoctor's answer:
Cerebral AVM is one of the main indications for stereotactic radiosurgery. AVMs located in critical brain regions, deep within the brain, or in the brainstem are often unsuitable for surgical or embolization treatment. Some statistics show that the mortality and recurrence rates of cerebral AVMs treated with stereotactic radiosurgery are significantly lower than those treated with microsurgery, indicating that stereotactic radiosurgery has great potential for treating cerebral AVMs, especially for those smaller than 3 cm. For AVMs larger than 3 cm, fractional and single-dose high-dose radiotherapy can be used. There is evidence to support this, so stereotactic radiosurgery is considered one of the most satisfactory treatments for deep cerebral AVMs.In recent years, stereotactic radiotherapy has many new treatment techniques, such as γ-knife and X-knife using 60Co or linear accelerators as radiation sources, particle knife using heavy particle accelerators as radiation sources, the latest proton knife, interstitial or intracavitary brachytherapy using radioactive isotopes as radiation sources, preoperative placement of catheters at the lesion site for afterloading treatment, and radiotherapy of the tumor bed during surgery. It is applied to vascular malformations, certain intracranial tumors, and functional diseases. The main complications include radiation-induced brain necrosis, cerebral edema around the target area, lesion bleeding, and neurological dysfunction.