New & Used Stereotactic Head Frame

Tips for buying Stereotactic Head Frame

1. Several clinical procedures, such as radio surgery, neurosurgery, microsurgery, and biopsies, should be able to use stereotactic headframes.
2. The following features should be available in treatment planning systems: removable media archival storage or connection to central storage, a film scanner, a color monitor, a keyboard, and mouse, 3-D planning software with graphics, digital imaging and communications in medicine compatibility, as well as dose computation and analysis features.
3. The headframes should be constructed of non-ferromagnetic materials for use with magnetic resonance and should be compatible with all cross-sectional imaging modalities, such as CT, DSA, MRI, PET, and X-ray. Headframes should be lightweight, around 1 kg.
4. In most headframes, fixation uses 2 to 4 carbon fiber or titanium pins or screws but some headframes use alternative fixation methods.
5. Several target approaches should be allowed by the center-of-arc or target-centered arc system. These include lateral, parallel, posterior fossa, and hypophyseal.
6. Method of approach confirmation should be available and target access should have a vertical range of >=150 mm, a lateral range of >=160 mm, and an anterior-posterior range of >=170 mm.
7. In dedicated gamma stereotactic systems, radiation sources should use more than 200 encapsulated 60Co sources.
8. The system should have tungsten collimators ranging from 4 to 18 mm in diameter.
9. Systems that allow attachments can have up to 20 MV, but dedicated linac radio surgery systems should have 6 MV photon energies.
10. Treatment delivery assemblies should be floor-mounted or wall-mounted with an isocentric accuracy of 0.5 mm for dedicated linacs. Those mounted onto the linac should have an isocentric accuracy of 1 mm.