Gamma Knife is not a knife, but rather a sophisticated system that can be used to replace brain surgery or whole brain radiation in some situations. It uses a single, high dose of gamma radiation delivered via up to 192 individual beams which intersect at a single spot with the accuracy of less than one-tenth of a millimeter (about the thickness of a sheet of paper).
A Gamma Knife procedure treats brain lesions with enough radiation to control them, so that they disappear, shrink or stop growing. It can be used to treat targets even in the most critical, difficult-to-access areas of the brain without delivering significant radiation doses to healthy normal brain tissue. Referred to as “surgery without a scalpel,” the Gamma Knife procedure does not require the surgeon to make an incision in the scalp, nor an opening in the skull.
Gamma Knife is more precise and delivers less dose to normal tissue than other radiosurgical tools that are currently available.