Leksell
Not a stand-alone company today — the "Leksell" name anchors Elekta's stereotactic radiosurgery product line. Named for Lars Leksell, the Swedish neurosurgeon who invented the Gamma Knife in 1968 and co-founded Elekta in 1972. The Leksell Gamma Knife and the Leksell Stereotactic Frame are the two enduring pieces of the Leksell legacy in modern practice.
Gamma Knife history
- 1951 — Lars Leksell (Karolinska Institute, Sweden) publishes the concept of stereotactic radiosurgery.
- 1968 — first prototype Gamma Knife built in Sweden.
- 1987 — Gamma Knife Model U, the first major commercial generation.
- 2006 — Gamma Knife Perfexion ships, a substantial redesign with 192 cobalt sources and sector-based collimation. Eliminated helmet exchanges.
- 2015 — Leksell Gamma Knife Icon adds integrated CBCT + frameless treatment capability via thermoplastic mask + intra-fraction motion management.
Product line
- Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion — large refurb installed base
- Leksell Gamma Knife Icon — current flagship; framed and frameless, hypofractionated
- Leksell Stereotactic Frame — the 1949-era stereotactic-neurosurgery reference frame; still widely used in functional and DBS neurosurgery
- Leksell GammaPlan — Gamma Knife treatment-planning software, tightly coupled to the platform
Distinctive technology
- 192 cobalt-60 sources in 8 sectors with sector-based collimation, allowing differential weighting and shape-tuning per shot — finer dose conformity than earlier helmet-based generations.
- Sub-millimeter mechanical accuracy by design — purpose-built cranial geometry, not a repurposed C-arm linac.
- Integrated CBCT on Icon — same-machine setup imaging for frameless fractions.
- Co-60 source decay (~5.27 yr half-life) drives a vendor-led source-reload event roughly every 7–10 years; substantial radiation-safety logistics, multi-day downtime, and program-level scheduling.
Market position
Sole global supplier of the cobalt-source Gamma Knife platform. Adjacent platforms — linac-based SRS (TrueBeam STx, Edge, Versa HD), CyberKnife, and proton therapy — compete on the same clinical indications via different architectures. Programs concentrate at academic and high-volume cancer centers; community SRS more commonly runs on linac platforms.
Refurb posture
- Source reload economics dominate the lifecycle. A used Perfexion or Icon's value tracks years remaining on the current cobalt loading.
- GammaPlan version + license is platform-coupled; inheriting an older software stack constrains protocol options.
- Vault and shielding are siting-specific; relocation is a substantial project with new-vault-equivalent shielding survey.