I just wanted to report on here on my husband's cyberknife experience so that someone else can learn from it. My husband, Larry, had cyberknife 6 months ago at Swedish Hospital in Seattle with the EXCELLENT Sandra Vermeulen on a 2 cm AN. He had been watching and waiting for 10 years when we discovered it had started to grow more quickly and needed treatment. We decided on cyberknife over gamma knife. His actual treatment was very uneventful. No pain, no trouble at all. In and out of work for 3 days. Since then, he has had NO side effects whatsoever. Nothing has changed for him although he didn't have very many AN related symptoms in the first place aside from diminished hearing in the affected ear, probably because of it's position. We just went today for his 6 month follow-up MRI. After anxiously waiting a few minutes in the Doctor's office, her first words as she entered (which we appreciated) were the scan looks great. The tumor did not swell, has not grown, and you can see the darkening in the middle which she said indicates liquification or necrosis and she deemed the treatment a success. We go back in another year and expect to see shrinkage. Yay!
I am so thankful that we did not do surgery and, in retrospect, am glad that we went through those years of watch and wait because of the advances in technology and research that took place through the years. I was second guessing our decision after we discovered that it had started growing faster, thinking that we let it get too big and that it would have been more easily treated when it was smaller. Had we decided to treat years ago, we probably would have gone for surgery, based on the research at the time, which most certainly would have been a tougher road to recovery. Thank you for the helpful information on this board and to all of you who have shared your experiences.
