Committing to Radiosurgery

[Stanislaus4048]

Hi everyone,

After a long period of research and contemplation, I have decided to pursue radiosurgery (Gamma Knife) to treat my relatively small (1.2cm), but growing, AN.

As I'm sure was the case for many of you, this was a very difficult decision, especially as I'm still in my 30's. I think the hardest part is coming to terms with a future of SSD, with the only question being how long after treatment my hearing will hold out.

I was initially set on surgery (middle-fossa), but was given 50-50 odds of serviceable hearing preservation by UCSD, which I ultimately deemed unsatisfactory combined with the additional risks of open surgery. 

I do feel confident in the fact that radiosurgey has become increasingly common for AN management, especially for younger patients.

Anyway, just wanted to say hi, and thought I might feel better after writing some of this out. Best regards.

[DanFouratt]

Congratulations on completing your decision journey. When I was going through the decision process I spoke with many professionals.  The single best advice was all decisions are right but when you make one, do not second guess yourself.  Make the decision you made work out best for you. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Dan

[richcooks]

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 15
 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.  Keep in mind this was 15 years ago.   The question to ask your Doctor is how will Gamma knife treatment affect my hearing?  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?"