Things You Should Know About Brain Tumor

[caption id="attachment_1447" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Some members of the Gamma Knife team—(from left) registered nurse Mel-Ross Caleda, Medical Physicist Eliseo Dela Cruz, Dr. Monserrat Velasquez, and registered nurse Mario Louis Bumatay"][/caption]



The right place to go

One of the most populated areas in the world is Manila. It’s the capital city of the Philippines that is why this metropolitan area attracts foreign visitors and overseas workers. Now healthcare system is one of the places visitors are looking forward on us.
Just recently I was able to attend a media briefing on Philippine Gamma Knife Center at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center, the only hospital that offers noninvasive brain surgery, meaning it minimizes the possibility of developing complications. Above all its harmless.
Upon visiting here I learned the things I should know about brain tumor.
In the past years, several modern procedures for the treatment of brain disorders have been made available in the Philippines. Generally, there are several different types of brain disorder.
It is important to know and understand that treating a brain disorder should be considerable to you. It means it is important for the treating doctor to consider your age, as well as any and all health complications that you may experience. And this should be the ideal medical standard for these cases.

[caption id="attachment_1446" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Dr. Ted Vesagas"][/caption]

Medical professionals should also consider the type of brain disorder that you suffer from, Let say a brain tumor, since it is the primary disorder Gamma Knife Center is treating. Consider the location of the tumor, as well as the general size of the abnormal growth.

To give an idea here are the different types of brain disorder treatment that you may choose from in order to treat the health complications that you suffer from.

 
Radiation Treatment
Radiation therapy is a treatment that many individuals with tumors select to participate in after being diagnosed by their doctor. Machines that emit rays that are filled with a high level of energy work to effectively destroy tumor based cells. This treatment is also effective in reducing the possibility that the cells will grow and continue to multiply in the body.
In most instances, radiation therapy will completely stop the growth and reproduction process of cancerous cells in the brain and other locations in the body. This is an appropriate treatment for those that are not capable of undergoing treatment. Many patients prefer this treatment as it is considered to be local. This means that it only targets cells that are cancerous and not healthy cells.
However, patients may experience hair loss, loose of appetite, fatigue and some patients get bloated.
Chemotherapy
Many patients chose the treatment of chemotherapy. This type of treatment incorporates the use of drugs in order to effectively destroy tumor cells. Medical professionals will use a combination of several drugs, but there are many that will use only one type of medication when issuing chemotherapy.
This treatment is typically given in what is referred to as a "cycle". This means that a person is issued the medication on an intensive level. Typically, the patients that undergo chemotherapy experience many different challenging and uncomfortable symptoms. Many individuals actually describe these symptoms as being unbearable such as nausea, mouth sores, loose of appetite and loss of hair.

It will also require you to keep on coming back, because, chemotherapy is usually done for three or more sessions.
Gamma Knife Surgery
It’s still considered a surgery but without incision. Following the patient’s admission, a stereotactic frame is attached to the patient’s head, then, neuroimaging such as MRI, CT Scan or cerebral angiography is performed. A marker on the stereotactic frame allows the Gamma Knife team to localize the tumor or vascular malformation with exact precision on a state of the art computer work station. When the plan is complete, actual treatment will follow which usually last a single day.
How exactly does Gamma Knife works?
The Gamma Knife uses ionizing radiation (gamma rays) produced by 201 cobalt-60 sources to target and destroy a tumor, a blood vessel abnormality such as an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) within or adjacent to brain tissue, or to treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and trigeminal neuralgia (an excruciatingly painful facial condition) with extreme accuracy. Since each individual gamma ray is of relatively weak intensity, the normal brain tissue surrounding the abnormality is protected as the full dose of radiation is focused only at the point where all 201 beams converge. This explains why side effects are rare and usually temporary. Since the procedure is non-invasive, or “bloodless”, the risks of post-operative complications, such as infection and hemorrhage, are eliminated.
A multidisciplinary team consisting of a neurosurgeon, a radiation oncologist, and a radiation physicist accomplishes treatment with the Gamma Knife. The referring physician is an active partner in the treatment process, and patients accepted by Gamma Knife treatment remain in their primary physician’s care. Providing regular reports on patient status, the Gamma Knife team maintains ongoing communications with referring physicians through evaluation, treatment, follow-up, and outcome studies.
The speed with which the treatment takes effect depends on the type of tumor (its tissue type, or histology). Fast-growing tumors, such as metastases, respond very quickly (weeks), whereas slow-growing tumors, such as acoustic neuromas, have slower response times (months, sometimes years). The Gamma Knife can be used alone or in combination with surgery or radiotherapy.
Now, the best option if you don’t want to suffer from the effects of Radiation Treatment and Chemotherapy is the Gamma Knife Surgery. And the only hospital in the Philippines that offers this kind of treatment is the Philippine Gamma Knife Center at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center. They prioritize quality of life, making it sure that they give quick recovery time to patients. It saves your time and money, because it prevents you form keep on coming back to the hospital.

Why Gamma Knife is the gold standard in non-invasive brain surgery

In the past years, several modern procedures for the treatment of brain disorders have been made available in the Philippines.



These have given Filipinos easier access to procedures that they have otherwise gone abroad for and all the incidental expenses for travel and accommodations to think of.

 

One such procedure is the Gamma Knife Radiosurgery pioneered by the Philippine Gamma Knife Center at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center. It was established in 1998 to provide the Filipino patient access to neurosurgical technology that was difficult to access. It was created to become a center of excellence for Stereotactic Neurosurgery and Radiosurgery.

Gamma Knife Radiosurgery represents an advance in the field of Stereotactic Neurosurgery and is considered as the gold standard in noninvasive brain surgery. It was the result of a relentless pursuit by Dr. Lars Leksell, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, to develop less invasive methods of cranial surgery.  Dr. Leksell developed the Gamma Knife as a noninvasive procedure for performing stereotactic functional neurosurgery.

The respect accorded to Gamma Knife Radiosurgery is based on three reasons: its guaranteed quick recovery time, its high performance rating among experts and patients alike, and the team of experts who perform the procedure.

 

Quick recovery time

Gamma Knife minimizes the possibility of developing complications.  Following the patient’s admission, a stereotactic frame is attached to the patient’s head, then, neuroimaging such as MRI, CT Scan or cerebral angiography is performed. A marker on the stereotactic frame allows the Gamma Knife team to localize the tumor or vascular malformation with exact precision on a state of the art computer work station. When the plan is complete, actual treatment will follow which usually last a single day.

 

“Compared to conventional open surgery, Gamma Knife allows the patients to return to his daily activities quickly and cost effectively. Because the Gamma Knife requires no incisions, and in most cases requires local anesthesia, many of the risk associated with conventional surgery such as infection, hemorrhage, adverse reaction to anesthesia and death are actually eliminated.

 

 

 

 

The procedure is accomplished within a very brief time frame. It is usually performed as an out patient basis with no associated convalescence. Most patients resume their normal activities after discharge from the center.

 

Safer and more effective

But more than quick recovery time, what is being commended by doctors and Gamma Knife patients alike is the accuracy with which Gamma Knife treats a brain disorder. In fact, there is no other procedure that can claim to have greater acceptance among the world’s leading hospitals and medical practitioners when it comes to the non-invasive treatment of brain disorders than Gamma Knife.

Here, no scalpels are required and no blood is shed. Patients undergoing the Gamma Knife procedure will have their brain disorders treated, instead, through the delivery of a high single dose of radiation to that area that is affected. That makes it safer as surrounding tissues will not be affected during or after the procedure.

 

Patients whose lives have been changed after a Gamma Knife treatment also number in hundreds of thousands around the world. The technology involved in this procedure ensures its precision in treating a brain disorder. It has been proven to be one of the most successful radiosurgery weapons in the fight against brain disorders such as Arteriovenous malformation, benign intracranial tumors including acoustic neuromas, meningiomas, pituitary adenomas, craniopharyngiomas, pineal tumors, malignant tumors such as metastatic carcinoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Other candidates for Gamma Knife Radiosurgery include patients with residual lesions left unresected by previous open neurosurgical procedure, patients at high risk for surgical complications due to age or underlying medical problems, and patient who refuse craniotomy. This is why it is preferred by the experts. Morbidity is low and mortality is none.



Expertise

Since its clinical start-up in 1998, the Philippine Gamma Knife Center has performed over 1700 radiosurgical and open stereotactic procedures. The safety and effectiveness of the Gamma Knife procedure is ensured by a multi disciplinary team of medical professionals which are all trained in Stockholm, Sweden.



The team is composed of Neurosurgeons, headed by Dr. Vesagas who currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Asian Leksell Gamma Knife Society, Radiation Oncologist, Medical Physicist, Anesthesiologist and Neurosurgical Nurse with years of experience behind them. Averaging 130 cases a year, the Stereotactic Neurosurgery team at the Philippine Gamma Knife Center is the most experienced in the country, bar none.

 

Need to know more about how Gamma Knife can help you? Just visit the PGKC at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center or visit their website at www.gammaknife.com.ph or call 7259254;7237575.