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What is an Adult Brain Tumor? | Stages | Treatment Options | Treatment Side Effects | About Clinical Trials | Greenebaum Cancer Center
Get answers to your Gamma Knife questions.
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Please install flash player to see this video.There are three primary treatment options for patients with adult brain tumor:
Surgery is the most common treatment of adult brain tumors. To take the cancer out of the brain, the doctor will first cut a part of the bone from the skull to get to the brain. This operation is called a craniotomy.
After the doctor removes the cancer, the bone will be put back or a piece of metal or fabric will be used to cover the opening of the skull. The surgeon will remove as much of the tumor as possible, but complete removal is uncommon because the tumor sends "fingers" into large areas of the brain, and they cannot be easily removed without damaging normal brain tissue.
Radiation Therapy, also called radiotherapy, uses high-energy rays to damage cancer cells and stop them from growing and dividing. It is a local therapy that only affects cancer cells in the treated area.
Radiation may come from a machine (external radiation) or from an implant placed
directly into or near a tumor (internal radiation). Radiation given to the brain
is called cranial irradiation.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy - treatment with drugs to kill cancer cells. Most anticancer drugs are injected into a vein (IV) or a muscle; some are given by mouth. Chemotherapy is a systemic treatment, meaning that the drugs flow through the bloodstream to nearly every part of the body to kill cancerous cells. It is generally given in cycles; a treatment period is followed by a recovery period, then another treatment period, and so on.
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