375 Abstract General surgery has seen many advances in recent years. In particular, many innovations in surgical technology and technique have been driven by the desire to make operations less invasive and more pre- cise. In today’s operating room, endoscopic, laparo- scopic and robot-assisted technologies are used every day with the goal of providing patients with improved cosmetic results, faster recovery and potentially fewer complications. While laparoscopy has been the dom- inant arena for recent technological developments in general surgery, other surgical disciplines have uti- lized alternative minimally invasive solutions. In the field of neurosurgery, stereotactic surgery and radio- surgery have been used to treat benign and malig- nant lesions of the brain for over 50 and 30 years, respectively. More recently, a frameless stereotactic radio- surgical system has been developed with robotic technology, Figure , that is capable of treating extracranial lesions. As of March 2005, more than 4000 extracranial sites have been treated with the CyberKnife®. More than 000 of these lesions were located in the chest and abdomen—areas that have traditionally been treated by general surgeons. As the scientific understanding and clinical practice of radiosurgery develops, this technology may become an increasingly valuable, minimally invasive option for treating a wide range of general surgical diseases. his chapter reviews the history of stereotactic sur- gery and radiosurgery, introduces the principles of robotic radiosurgery for the general surgeon, com- ments on early results of robotic radiosurgery in a few general surgical applications and discusses the potential for future applications. Introduction Minimally Invasive Surgery, Laparoscopy & Beyond General surgeons have embraced technologies that make procedures both more precise and less inva- sive. During the past two decades, this has been CHAPTER 33 Robotic Radiosurgery for the General Surgeon Russell K. Woo Raymond A. Schulz George P. Yang John R. Adler Jr homas M. Krummel