I rarely post anymore so I'm sure few on the board will know me, but I was treated with CK for a 2 cm right side AN in November 2001 at Stanford by Drs Chang and Gibbs. Since radiosurgery in general and CK specifically were new at the time, I committed that I would post updates to hopefully provide some long term baselines for people
Since I'm now on a 3 year interval these have been more sparse, but yesterday had my 15 year MRI, audiogram and review with Dr. Chang.
Tumor: continues to be stable and surprisingly display some additional shrinkage. after 2 years it was reduced to 1.5X 1.6X 1.6 and is now roughly 1.2X1.4X1.4
Facial nerve - no issues
Balance - no issues
Hearing- some continued deterioration across the mid to high frequencies. 19db drop since 2003, word recognition drop from 100 to 72%. This is to be expected given since, while dead , the scar tissue continues to sit on an already compromised hearing nerve, plus I'm 15 years older
. So, I'm probably finally ready to look at hearing aids to help in noisy environments, but I'm good with that. If I had done surgery with my size AN i most likely would have lost all hearing in 2001, so having usable hearing this long was a bonus.
Next follow up will be in 2019
best to everyone
Mark