Key Points
- The 16th biennial ISRS Congress was held May 12–15, 2024 in New York City.
- The Foundation sponsored a mini symposium on the latest focused ultrasound advances in ablation, radiosensitization, and neuromodulation.
Held every two years, the 16th biennial ISRS Congress took place May 12–15, 2024, in New York City. With the theme “Personalized Radiosurgery from Around the World,” stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is now becoming tailored to the care of each patient. With more than 600 attendees from 14 countries, the congress showcased recent advances in SRS, stereotactic body radiotherapy, and related focal therapy techniques for benign, malignant, and functional conditions.
“Many clinicians performing stereotactic radiosurgery personally deliver or work at centers that perform focused ultrasound,” said ISRS Vice President Jason Sheehan, MD, PhD, professor of neurosurgery, radiation oncology, biomedical engineering, and neuroscience at the University of Virginia. “When applied to treat complex intracranial problems, SRS and focused ultrasound share similar principles of being minimally invasive, image guided, stereotactic procedures. As such, there was considerable interest in the focused ultrasound seminar at the ISRS Congress.”
Luncheon Seminar
The Foundation hosted a luncheon seminar titled “Latest Updates on Focused Ultrasound in Brain Disease Treatment: New Insights into Ablation, Radiosensitization, and Neuromodulation.” It was presented by Chrit Moonen, PhD, a managing director at the Foundation and co-director of the Research and Education Team.
“Regarding ablation, stereotactic radiosurgery in the brain is faced with targeting problems similar to those in MR-guided focused ultrasound for the treatment of essential tremor,” said Dr. Moonen. “There is an increasing use of advanced MRI techniques to provide improved targeting.” He added, “The information on the novel possibilities of local drug delivery and radiosensitization via blood-brain barrier opening with microbubbles and focused ultrasound was much appreciated and led to a lively discussion on future applications in neurodegenerative diseases.”
Focused Ultrasound Presentations
Two focused ultrasound abstracts were presented at the conference:
- In the Alternative Targeting Strategies – LITT/HIFU/Flash RT session, Michael Schwartz, MD, MSc, FRCSC, a neurosurgeon at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and professor of surgery at the University of Toronto in Canada, presented “Finding the ventral intermediate (VIM) nucleus for MR guided focused ultrasound thalamotomy.”
- In the Novel SRS/SBRT Targets session, Michael Schulder, MD, FAANS, a neurosurgeon in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and director of the Brain Tumor Center at Northwell Health’s Institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery in New York, USA, presented “SRS for Functional Disorders in the Era of FUS and DBS.”
Search the meeting program for your own research interests or key words.
Upcoming Meetings
ISRS is hosting its first CNS Summit on June 4–5, 2025, in Geneva, Switzerland. Then, in 2026, the 17th biennial ISRS Congress will be held in Sydney, Australia, from May 31 – June 3rd.
ISRS was founded as an international nonprofit organization in 1991. It is dedicated to advancing the field of stereotactic radiosurgery through research, education, and multidisciplinary collaboration. It is the largest organization of its kind with over 800 members from more than 60 countries.