ANSydney,
The ANA Medical Advisory Board is aware of this study AND has several notes of caution, including this response:1. This article is a review, and to critically understand a review, it is important to have familiarity with the source material.
2. We all have some biases as to what we think, and while we all clearly recognize bias toward surgery or radiosurgery, I would suggest that the Denmark group has a bias toward observation. Their whole academic interest and reputation is based upon this.
3. The definition of tumor growth used by the Denmark group is very liberal. For instance, they do not consider an intracanalicular tumor to be growing until it grows out of the IAC; that is, a tumor that grows in the canal from 3mm to 8mm is still in the non-growing group.
4. Looking at references, they cite studies showing high rates of non growth without making it clear that these are very selected groups of patients. These selected groups are not representative of all patients diagnosed with ANs. For example, see reference 16, from the House Clinic.
Having said all that, we do see patients with non growing tumors, so obviously some do stop growing. The trouble is knowing which ones these are.
An experienced physician with good judgement may be able to select which tumors can be safely followed, even if they are initially growing slowly, with the hope that growth has a good chance of stopping.
On the other hand, for one patient to generally encourage other patients to disregard doctors’ advice to treat growing tumors with the expectation that growth will probably stop is in my opinion dangerous. This is a very one-sided reading of a very complex literature.
I encourage all patients to explore to the fullest all treatment options.
Allison
