Basic Principles and New Developments in Stereotactic Radiotherapy

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Contents of the Talk

Stereotactic Radiotherapy is defined as a method of percutaneous external beam radiotherapy, in which a clearly defined target volume is treated with high precision and accuracy with a biologically high radiation dose in one single or a few fractions with locally curative intent. This talk will outline the basic technical and biological principles of Stereotactic Radiotherapy and its quality requirements to perform this treatment safely and effectively in routine clinical practice. Various treatment systems with different technical approaches and methodologies are currently in use to perform guideline-recommended therapies for malignant or benign tumors as well as neurological or vascular functional disorders in the whole body.

The interdisciplinary treatment process for Stereotactic Radiotherapy begins with comprehensive Tumorboard discussions and therapy justification, followed by treatment planning with volumetric imaging and target and organ-at-risk volume contouring, radiation beam planning and dose optimization with quality assurance, treatment dose application with patient monitoring and finally by outcome evaluation during follow-up. Each of these aspects of the Stereotactic Radiotherapy treatment chain offers opportunities for optimization through new clinical knowledge and new technical developments.

Some of these clinical and medical physics novelties such as international best practice benchmark studies, detector developments and their clinical implementation for quality assurance, ex-vivo and in-vivo treatment precision analysis, long-term clinical outcome investigation and the implementation of clinical studies for new indications such as cardiac arrythmias will be highlighted in this talk.

Short CV

Oliver Blanck studied computer science with a focus on Stereotactic Radiotherapy treatment planning systems until 2008 and received a PhD for his preclinical work on Stereotactic Arrythmia Radioablation (STAR) in 2013, both at the University of Lübeck, and habilitated in Medical Physics in 2024 at the medical faculty of the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel. Currently, he is the chief officer of operations and head medical physics, research, and development at the university driven Saphir Radiosurgery centers in Frankfurt am Main and Kiel and the research coordinator of multiple clinical trials on Stereotactic Radiotherapy in Germany at the department of radiation oncology of the University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), Campus Kiel. Furthermore, Oliver Blanck is an active and awarded member of several scientific societies as well as a board member of the working groups for Stereotactic Radiotherapy of the German Radiation Oncology (DEGRO) and Medical Physics (DGMP) societies and the lead coordinator of the EU-Horizon-2020 STOPSTORM consortium project on STAR.