Surgery vs. Radiation

[Bax]

 I am trying to decide what I should do--should I have surgery or do radiation.

What are important factors for me to consider in making this decision?

[Sheryl]

There are many things to consider.  First of all if you feel you just want "it" out of your head, surgery would be the way to go as radiation does not get rid of the tumor.  Are you in good health and could tolerate a major operation?  Are you older and could possibly "wait and watch"?  What is the size of the tumor?  If it is large, radiation may not be an option.  In my case, I have "waited and watched" for 3-1/2 years - partly due to finding out I had breast cancer a year after finding the benign brain tumor and my husband having another benign type of brain tumor operated on - a meningioma.  Boy, talk about full plates!!!   Mine has grown about 1 mm a year - from 9 mm to 13 mm a few months ago.  I have decided on radiation and am currently pursuing my options - gamma knife vs. cyberknife, etc.  I feel that I will probably do something in the next few months.  Good luck with whatever you decide.  This board has been a great help.

[Becky]

I am trying to decide what I should do--should I have surgery or do radiation.

What are important factors for me to consider in making this decision?

Bax:

If your tumor is compressing an artery, you may want to have it removed. 

Keep in mind that the symptoms don't always go away with the treatment. 

If your tumor is small you are fortunate to have all options available -- watch & wait, GK, FSR, mid fossa, translab, suboccipital or endoscopic surgery, which has gained much criticism to date. 

Unless you have to, I would say take your time and don't rush into anything.  Then, when the time comes, find an experienced surgeon who is a good doctor/cares about you.

Good luck ;
Becky

[farmboy]

Bax

I am 2 week post Gamma Knife and I feel great my dizzyness has gone, still have some balance issues if I move very fast and turn too quickly.  I wore hearing aids before treatment because of hearing nurve damage from noise and I can hear more now then pre treatment.  I chose GK because of age 68 and I had major surgure in May and had serious afteraffects from it.  Both my ENT and Neuro surgen recommended GK and I was more comfortable with that than surgery.  If you have any further question I would be glad to answer.

Take you time you are comfortable with and the Dr you have confidence in.

Melvin

[gregpstone]

 For the latest outcome studies the Journal of Neurosurgery has six articles in, and supplemental to, it’s January 2005 issue. Go to this site: http://www.thejns-net.org/ and search on schwannoma to find all the articles.

[gregpstone]

First, for those of you checking the articles at the Journal of Neurosurgery, a membership is now required to view the articles. However, because they use google as their search engine you can still see them by clicking "View as HTML".

Well my latest MRI shows the tumor growing so I'm going to get treatment.  My main concern is cognitive issues relating to balance.

Looking back to the 1998 ANA Member Survey of long-term problems after treatment, I note that almost twice as many surgery patients reported balance/dizziness, almost three times as many surgery patients reported memory problems and five times as many surgery patients reported concentration problems compared to GK patients. The survey is not intended to be a scientific study but we have to make do with what data is available.

Dr. Bennecke's assessment echoed my own, he said that the only advantage of surgery was having the tumor gone and for some people this was important enough to justify risking surgery's higher rate of morbidity. The clincher is, if evidence develops later that cutting/killing the nerve is the best way to go, that can be done with a relatively simple surgical procedure. So I'm going down today to visit the GK folks at St. Louis University and schedule getting Guido zapped.