On March 8th, I learned that my AN was gowing and my physician recommened radiation which his was Gamma. I was scared to do anything since I was already deaf in my other ear and was told by two doctors I had only a 60 to 70 chance of saving my hearing with gamma. I decided to wait and do research on treatments. I found doctors that had gamma recommend gamma, doctors with cyberknife recommend cyberknife, doctors with novailis recommend novailis and surgens recommend surgery. Gamma doctors constantly state that gamma has been around the longest with a proven record. With this theory than no new medical treatment could be recomended. Novailis has been around even less than cyberknife. It was recommened by me to contact the best there is and I understand them to be Dr. Chang at Stanford, HEI, and I was given a doctor at Pittsburgh. Dr. Chang answered my email in less than an hour, HEI left a messege a week later saying someone would call me that does cyberknife and gamma and over a week Pitt has not called. All the research I have done and found shows that cyberknife has the best chance of retaining hearing along with tumor control. Cyberknife is usually from 3 to 5 treatments, which gives healthy tissue time to regain strength before next dose. Gamma and cyber is about the same total dose but gamma is all at once. I questioned Dr. Chang about doing 5 lesser strength doses instead of 3 but he said after 3 the hearing does have a better chance but the tumor also begins to have a lesser chance of being controlled. Last night my wife and I booked our week long trip to San Francisco from New jersey for treatment in two weeks with Dr Chang by cyberknife. I want to thank everyone for your support and answering my questions. It is hard to imagine how to make decisions without this website. I was considering when I return posting my experience so others would have an idea of what to expect. Thanks
