[Proton "radiosurgery" of cerebral arteriovenous malformations]

Arteriovenous malformations (AVM) are vascular lesions arising from impaired angiogenesis at the stage of transformation of primary embryonic arteriovenous anastomoses into capillaries. Commonly AVMs manifest with spontaneous hemorrhage. Stereotactic radiosurgery is method of choice for treatment of surgically inaccessible AVMs, which are characterized by high risk of damage of adjacent critical structures. In addition, stereotactic radiosurgery is used either as a component of complex management of large AVMs or pre-planned procedure combined with endovascular intervention, or as a second line therapeutic option in residual AVM after subtotal surgical resection. Comparing with photons protons due to their unique physical properties have advantages in spatial spread of dose thus allowing to significantly decrease integral dose to the surrounding brain tissue when treating large AVMs with complex shape proximal to critical structures.