white filling in the black?

[madison]

hello!
i went to u of p for my 21 mth. follow-up to gamma knife. the tumor is about the same size as last mri. the dr. says the black necrosis
part is filling in with white. he said this could be good or bad...it could be the tumor re-growing or...in the cases where he has seen tumor shrinkage it usually
does this first. so i don't know what to think-i guess i'll just keep praying i won't need surgery. i am glad to at least be free for the holidays.
i want to research surgeons just for future reference-if necessary. how do i find out who specializes in AN's around my area. of course, there's always HOUSE- i just don't know about that being an option for me. if anyone has any info regarding this or if anyone has heard about the black being filled in with white, please let me know. thanks

[mk]

Madison,

in the majority of cases, tumor darkening is only transient (if it is observed at all). This is documented in all the medical literature. Darkening followed by reappearance of contrast (what you refer to as filling with white), means that there is scar tissue forming (meaning a dead tumor!). Scar tissue appears white with contrast.
This was exactly what happened with my AN as well. It showed necrosis at 6 and 12 month MRI and enhanced contrast at the 18 month MRI. My doctor said that this means that "things are settling down".
The most important thing is control of the growth. Shrinkage may happen in some cases, but not always. It appears yours has not shown growth up to now, so this sounds like an excellent result. Congratulations.

Marianna