Radiosurgery after craniotomy.

Adjuvant irradiation of the resection cavity after craniotomy is a newer application of stereotactic radiosurgery. This technique has been proposed to avoid long-term neurotoxicity of whole-brain radiation therapy, and seems to afford comparable local control rates in the multiple published retrospective series so far. Currently, many questions remain to be answered to define the optimal patients who are candidate for tumor bed radiosurgery. The optimal timing after craniotomy, the volume of tissue to include in the treatment isodose and the radiation dose required to provide long-term local control are parameters which remain controversial at the moment.