What is the difference between intensity modulated radiation therapy and gamma knife therapy?

The ideal radiotherapy is to protect normal tissues and kill tumor cells as much as possible. Three-dimensional intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) can accurately emit radioactive sources, so that the high dose of radiotherapy is distributed in three dimensions, which is consistent with the shape of the tumor, so as to reach the goal of pointing where and not hurting other organs.

Stereotactic gamma-ray whole-body radiotherapy system (whole-body gamma knife) is a stereotactic radiotherapy equipment which integrates stereotactic technology and surgical technology and mainly treats physical diseases.

It adopts the geometric focusing mode of gamma rays, focuses the planned dose of gamma rays on the pre-irradiation target through accurate stereotactic, and irradiates tumor tissues in multiple fields and angles, and implements conformal radiotherapy according to different shapes and sizes of tumors.

Its therapeutic volume is basically equal to the volume of the focus (that is, the "target area"), which can fatally destroy the tumor tissue in the target area, or form radiation accumulation in the general volume of the tumor through high-energy gamma rays, so as to gradually achieve the lethal effect on the tumor tissue and kill the diseased tissue, thus achieving the effect of surgical resection or destruction of the tumor. Because the radiation is focused in a rotating way, it is only instantaneous and almost harmless after passing through the human body and normal tissues, and the radiation outside the target area decreases sharply, so the boundary between the therapeutic irradiation range and normal tissues is very clear, and the edge is like a knife, so people call it "gamma knife" vividly.