Sonja Dieterich

About

Sonja Dieterich is a distinguished medical physicist whose career has centered on robotic radiosurgery, real-time motion management, and quality assurance in radiation therapy. She is perhaps best known for her foundational contributions to CyberKnife technology, including her early work on respiratory motion tracking using skin surface markers and quantitative measurement of robotic arm steering, which helped establish the technical credibility of frameless stereotactic radiosurgery. Her 2007 paper on CyberKnife robotic arm steering has accumulated 162 citations, while her pioneering neural network research on predicting irregular breathing patterns (124 citations) laid critical groundwork for adaptive radiotherapy strategies. Dieterich's leadership within the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) has been especially impactful. She co-authored the landmark TG-135 report on quality assurance for robotic radiosurgery (247 citations), which became an essential clinical reference worldwide, and contributed to TG-264 on safe MLC tracking implementation (92 citations), reflecting her sustained influence on emerging real-time radiotherapy technologies. Her work on four-dimensional conformal planning and SBRT for moving targets further demonstrates her commitment to advancing safe, precise tumor targeting. Across her career, Dieterich has shaped both the scientific foundations and the clinical standards of modern radiosurgery.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Report of AAPM TG 135: Quality assurance for robotic radiosurgery

   247 citations · 2011
2. 2
   Quantitative Measurement of CyberKnife Robotic Arm Steering

   162 citations · 2007
3. 3
   Comparative performance of linear and nonlinear neural networks to predict irregular breathing

   124 citations · 2006
4. 4
   AAPM Task Group 264: The safe clinical implementation of MLC tracking in radiotherapy

   92 citations · 2020
5. 5
   The CyberKnife in Clinical Use: Current Roles, Future Expectations

   84 citations · 2011
6. 6
   SBRT targets that move with respiration

   46 citations · 2018
7. 7
   Skin respiratory motion tracking for stereotactic radiosurgery using the CyberKnife

   33 citations · 2003
8. 8
   Feasibility of four‐dimensional conformal planning for robotic radiosurgery

   26 citations · 2005
9. 9
   A robotic 3-D motion simulator for enhanced accuracy in CyberKnife stereotactic radiosurgery

   22 citations · 2004
10. 10
    Feasibility of case-based beam generation for robotic radiosurgery

    14 citations · 2011

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links