Gamma Knife surgery physicians

[rwall111]

Hello everyone,

I am new to the forum. I found out in May that I have a 2.0 cm acoustic neuroma.  I was trying to find a surgeon experienced in Gamma Knife surgery and I was wondering if anyone can suggest surgeons in the Rochester, NY area experienced in this type of surgery. I was thinking of Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester or Roswell Park in Buffalo but would be willing to travel further. Thank you.

Bob

[richcooks]

Best of luck moving forward after your treatment.  I had fractionated sterotactic radiation... in 2010.  My AN was discovered in 2003 as 1mm.  Tiny tiny tiny.  It grew 1mm a year and 2010 I too had to decide which treatment to do.  Oddly enough my brother discovered he had a AN at the same time as me.  I live on the Jersey shore.  Lots of Medical facilities to choose from.   I visited UPenn and others and did a lot of research.  The one thing that kept coming back to me was that you have a better chance to preserve hearing with Fractionated vs The Gamma Knife.  Reason being Gamma Knife is one big dose of radiation that results in collateral damage to health tissue.  Fractionated are smaller doses given over a period of time.  Any exposure to healthy tissue is at a lower dose and the tissue has time to recover before the next treatment.  I had to go five consecutive days for my treatment that lasted a total of 45 minutes each which included the prepping etc..  Here I am 13
 years later with no issues other than the tinitus and some (not a lot) loss of hearing in my right ear.  My brother lives in Rochester NY and he chose Gamma Knife.  Lost his hearing in his affected ear.  What I learned was that you need to search out the doctor who does the procedure you want.  The expert at UPenn only did Gamma Knife.  After meeting with him and based on all the research I did I decided that I wanted Fractionated.   One of my questions to all of these guys was, " Does my Tumor make a good target for you to engage?"

[sgrady1964]

I had an acoustic aroma in 2001. 1 cm. I went to Dade Lunsford at University of Pittsburgh.  He brought this technology to the U.S.  I had wonderful results.  My life has been completely normal for the past 22 years.  I am still so ever thankful that I went to where I did.  I see these days that they perform gamma knife all over the country, but personally, I am ever so thankful that i went to the best place there was to go. ( I actually remember students from around the world witnessing my procedure.  I remember saying, "they aren't going to do my gamma knife, are they?") He said, "oh course not".  I am still so thankful to this man and to the University of Pittsburgh Neurological Center.
This man, this facility and this procedure saved my quality of life.-  Susan Grady

[sgrady1964]

I can't belive that I typed "aroma".  Neuroma is obviously what I meant to say.

[donjehle]

I usually blame my mistakes on 'autocorrect'.

But your typo brought a smile to my face