FSR Therapy/ Novalis

[Timjk]

I went today for a consult with Dr. Chinnaiyan (Pronounced "Shania" as in Shania Twain" and put an N" on the end of it) at Moffitt Center in Tampa. This is the same place I had my surgery back in February.
We are attacking what is left of that same tumor. He recommended FSR Therapy instead of a one time blast. The size of the tumor is 3.38 CM. The way it was explained to me today is what they did in the surgery was take out the portion of the tumor that was pressing against the brain stem and also cutting the tumor in half side ways as to not damage any nerves. In doing the surgery that way, they were actually preparing the tumor to be killed via radiation. They use the Novalis machine at Moffitt.

 He is thinking 5 sessions a week for 6 weeks. He went over the side effects of possible headaches and fatigue for probably the first 2 or 3 weeks. He told me if headaches occur he will prescribe a steroid.

I am pretty much brand new to this type of treatment. I felt like I studied enough before the appointment to carry on an intelligent conversation with him. He remarked that he was impressed with my questions.

My question for anyone is : does this sound pretty much like a good choice ??

I asked him for his credentials. He was trained at the U of Wisconsin at Madison and came to Moffitt in February. He has done over 100 of these procedures / 30 since coming to Moffitt.

Give me some feedback please..

Tim Kimball

[jimmy r]

I recently had a similar experience. I had a 2.8cm recurence after 20 years. I had retro surgery on June 19th at mass general. They removed about half the tumor becasue my facial nerve was wrapped around it. I then had FSR Linac radiation, 30 treatments for 6 weeks. The theory was that the lower doses of radition would prevent facial nerve damage. I had the option of having it done at my local hospital or drive 2 hours to masss General. The radiologist at mass General felt i had to go there becasue of more experience with acoustics. I decided to go with experience. So far i am fine and will have to wait a year to see if it was successfull. Evaluate the experience of your local team. I have no idea if it matters, but others on this web site seem to think so. I finished last week. I had no headaches or side effects. I have been the most tired the week after it was over which may be becasue i am working a lot more now.

[debora]

Tim,
Please read up on the Novalis and Ck.   There have been discussions and comments from members and Doctors in this forum on the difference between the Novalis and Ck. I wouldn't take a risk with my brain and I  would go for the more accurate treatment, don't let one Doctor convince you that their treatment is better than others.  He just might have financial incentive to recommend the Novalis.  My neurosurgeon said he did both surgery and radiation, he highly recommended radiation, guess which radiation unit he used.   PLEASE do tons of checking with CK and Novalis.
Deb

[sgerrard]

I guess I would agree with Deb, taking a good look at CK would make sense. There are some who have had the 4-6 week series with Novalis with good results, so it is not a bad choice. But there does seem to be a growing consensus that CK is the best of the bunch - it is accurate, minimizing exposure of adjacent tissue, and can be broken up into 3 to 5 treatments, avoiding the big blast effect. Facial nerve problems seem to be rare, in the 1-2% range.

A simple step would be to post a question on the cyberknife forum, and see what the CK doctors have to say. They will favor CK, of course, but there reasons might be helpful for you in deciding whether to stick with Novalis or seek out CK somewhere.  I don't know if the size of your AN would be an issue, but the doctors on the site could answer that. The site is
http://www.cyberknifesupport.org/forum/
You can quickly register and post a question, and see what kind of response you get. It couldn't hurt.

Either way, I wish you the best with the rest of your treatment.

Steve