Quality Assurance of Immobilization and Target Localization Systems for Frameless Stereotactic Cranial and Extracranial Hypofractionated Radiotherapy

The success of stereotactic radiosurgery has stimulated significant interest in the application of such an approach for the treatment of extracranial tumors. The potential benefits of reduced healthcare costs and improved patient outcomes that could be realized in a high-precision, hypofractionated treatment paradigm are numerous. Image-guidance technologies are eliminating the historic requirement for rigid head fixation and will also accelerate the clinical implementation of the approach in extracranial sites. An essential prerequisite of "frameless" stereotactic systems is that they provide localization accuracy consistent with the safe delivery of a therapeutic radiation dose given in one or few fractions. In this report, we reviewed the technologies for frameless localization of cranial and extracranial targets with emphasis on the quality assurance aspects.