Pat,
I also found out that my first neurosurgeon did not remove everything 10 years later only after my scar tissue started to grow. It was not scar tissue after all, it was remaining piece of a tumor. I do understand your shock and probably the feeling that you cannot trust those doctors again or take their recommendations seriously. I was a young woman who went through two pregnancies during those 10 years, two factors (being a young woman and pregnancies) that spur tumor growth. That is why I am saying that there is a very good chance that you would not have anything to do with that tumor because it might not grow at all. There is an upside to aging: growth of existing tumors slows down! I tell myself that same thing: that if I get another recurrence, I might not have to do anything at all. After all, I am getting older!
As far as GK vs. CK, I am probably not the best person to answer that. I will try to tell you what I understand and if I am wrong, somebody here will correct me. GK and CK deliver different forms of radiation. Doctors who practice one over the other love to tell you that the other one will give you cancer. I would honestly ignore that. Statistically, the chance is very small and a lot of time has to pass for that to happen, like 20+ years. GK is older, better researched. GK delivers radiation in perfect circles (spheres is a better word) with a center getting the biggest dose of radiation. Since most ANs, unless they are very small, are not perfectly spherical, GK treatment will consist of many of those circles each one requiring repositioning of the patient. Circles will have to be overlapping thus creating "hot " and " cold " spots each receiving more or less radiation. Positioning system can be automatic or manual. Pittsburgh has automatic positioning system, Columbia had the manual one when I spoke to them but that was almost 4 years ago.
CK, on the other hand, is much more automatic by design and spreads radiation over the entire tumor. I believe it also takes into account the patient breathing or moving just a bit. In your case, since your residual is so small, you would get very few (possibly even one) of those radiation circles if you had GK. With my long and irregularly shaped tumor, I would get many. So, you can get all the benefits of GK without its major disadvantages (many circles of radiation and manual repositioning). GK vs CK is absolutely your choice with none being clearly better, in my opinion. The longer you wait, the more chance is that the system would get upgraded or more research will come out. There is no need to rush. Good luck in everything you do.
Eve
