Retaining Dunedin as the sole provider of the radiation treatment radiosurgery would strengthen the South Island neurosurgery service, South Island neurosurgical service implementation manager Joy Farley says.
The Ministry of Health is reviewing radiosurgery, which is used to treat brain tumours and vascular malformations by directing an intense beam of radiation at the head.
Part of the procedure requires a neurosurgeon.
At present, Dunedin Hospital is the country's only provider.
A project outline, released by the Ministry of Health, said the review was driven by increasing demand and uses for radiosurgery, changes in technology since the service was established in Dunedin in 1994, and a plan to deliver radiosurgery in the private sector in Auckland.
Ms Farley hoped Dunedin retained its sole provider status, because that strengthened the viability of neurosurgery in Dunedin.
Increasing demand indicated volumes should be lifted from the 70 radiosurgery procedures a year funded at Dunedin Hospital, Ms Farley said.
She acknowledged Auckland's population base made the sole Dunedin option less likely.
Ms Farley has requested South Island neurosurgery clinical leader Martin MacFarlane be appointed to an expert panel being convened to advise the review.
The South Island neurosurgery expert panel report last November, which outlined how the South Island neurosurgery service would work after a row between Canterbury and Southern district health boards threatened the loss of Dunedin's resident neurosurgeons, said Dunedin should remain sole provider of radiosurgery.
The panel's report said radiosurgery aligned well with neurosurgery.
"It would be logical in a distributed South Island service for [radiosurgery] to continue developing at the Dunedin node."
International guidelines indicated an appropriate catchment size for radiosurgery was 5 million people, which "indicates that New Zealand should have just one site and that there is no reason in the foreseeable future to expand beyond that".
The radiosurgery review is expected to be completed by the end of July.
