• Shoji Yomo and Motohiro Hayashi.
• Saitama Gamma Knife Centre, San-ai Hospital, Saitama, Japan.
• Brain Nerve. 2011 Jan 1;63(1):41-9.

AbstractCavernous malformations (CMs) consist of dilated vascular channels that have a characteristic appearance on MRI. They can present with seizures, neurological deficits due to lesion hemorrhage, or as incidental findings on neuroradiological studies. Treatment options include conservative therapy; medical management of seizures; surgical intervention; and in selected cases, stereotactic radiosurgery. The role of radiosurgery in the treatment of CMs remains controversial, in part, because of the absence of neuroimaging criteria to gauge their successful obliteration as well as its higher complication rates. Radiosurgery is recommended only for symptomatic lesions that are surgically inaccessible or located in eloquent brain. We reviewed previously published papers on CMs with respect to hemorrhage rates, seizure control, and radiation-induced morbidity in order to better understand the balance of benefits and risks associated with the radiosurgical treatment for CMs. The data in this review provides convincing evidence that stereotactic radiosurgery is a relatively safe procedure with acceptable risks of morbidity and that its use could reduce the rebleeding rate and the frequency of seizures caused by for CMs located in the high-surgical-risk regions of the brain. We also present our experience of treating for 16 patients with CMs and show that our results were comparable to those previously reported.

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