Brain tumour--Continue

Treatments
For all other tumours, your medical team's immediate goal will be to reduce the size of the tumour as much as possible (sometimes by removing it altogether). Various approaches may be used in this assault, including surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy or new investigate procedures. While these techniques are sometimes used alone, most often they are deployed in various combinations, depending on the particular situation.

TAKING CONTROL

• Bring a notebook to doctors' appointments and write down the answers to your questions, appointment times and places, and any special instructions. Some people even tape-record meetings with their doctors (ask permission first).
• Ask your doctor for anti-nausea drugs if you're scheduled for radiation therapy or chemotherapy (both treatments can cause nausea and vomiting). Medicines commonly prescribed include metoclopramide and prochlorperazine.
• Join a support group. Other people going through the same thing you are can offer invaluable emotional support. The group can also be a font of information on treatments, coping techniques and how to deal with your insurance company. Ask if there are cancer support groups in your area.
• keep a wish list of things you'd like help with. Friends and neighbours are sure to want to lend a hand, so done be reluctant to ask them to take the dog for a walk, mow the lawn, bring in dinner on a day, when you have a doctor's appointment or whatever else you need.
• Try stress-reduction techniques. Dealing with a brain tumour and its treatment can push your stress level sky-high. Meditation, deep-breathing exercises and going for walks can all help you feel calmer and better able to handle what comes.

Procedures
In all likelihood, to begin you'll have the standard treatment surgery. And that may be all need for some benign and grade I tumours. In most cases though, surgery can't completely remove the tumour without doing unacceptable levels of damage to your healthy brain tissue, the surgeon may take a simple of it for a biopsy--an examination under a microscope. This reveals what type of tumour you have and helps your medical team determine which other treatments will be most  effective.
         If your tumour  can't be removed because it's too deep or inter-twined with healthy brain tissue, the surgeon may take a sample of it for a biopsy--an examination under a microscope. This reveals what type of tumour you have and helps your medical team determine which other treatments will be most effective.
    Neurosurgeons have a number of techniques in their surgical arsenal. If the tumour is close to the surface of your brain and you're in good health, you'll probably have a craniotomy. Your surgeon will take out a piece of skull over the part of your brain near the tumour, remove the tumour as completely as possible, and usually replace the bone. If your tumour is in area of your brain that controls motor function or speech, your doctor may perform surgery under local anaesthesia to better measure your nerve response during the operation.
   If the brain tumour can't be reached easily, another option is laser microsurgery, which surprises cancer cells with a specific type of laser beam. Your doctor may do this as a single procedure or as an
adjunct to a craniotomy to eliminate any abnormal tissue still left. For this type of surgery, the surgeon may use a guidance system called stereo-tactic localisation (stereo-taxy).  with this system, a rigid frame is screwed into the head and an attached scanning device displays a three-dimensional map of the brain, allowing the tumour's exact location to be pinpointed. A frameless stereotaxy has also been developed.

PROMISING DEVELOPMENTS

• A new type of treatment called photodynamic therapy (PDT) may reduce recurrences of certain types of brain tumours. Before surgery to remove the tumour, a patients is given a light-activated drug (photofrin), which is absorbed by the tumour and makes the cancer cells fluorescent. During surgery, the surgeon directs a laser at the tumour cells, which activates the drug, killing the cells.
• Monoclonal anitbodies (MAbs) are a particularly promising new treatment possibility. These genetically engineered antibodies are bound with radioactive  iodine and put into a brain tumour. The antibodies lock onto certain tumour cells and the iodine destroys them, without the tissue damage caused by standard radiation treatment. In one study of people with high-grade gilomas, this treatment more than doubled the average survival time, from 11 months to 23 months.
• Gene therapy may one day provide the cure for brain tumours. By delivering a particular gene, the tumour could then be sensitised to radiation treatments.
• Scientists are studying interleukin and interferon, two natural proteins that are toxic, to many tumour cells. To date, a treatment called IL-4 toxin therapy, which combines interleukin with a cancer fighter derived from bacteria, has made tumours shrink in preliminary animal studies.  

  After surgery, in most cases you'll have radiation therapy, oven if it appears your entire tumour has been excised. (This is to eradicate microscopic cancer cells left behind in the surrounding brain tissue.) Radiation is also used to shrink any part of the tumour that remains, or tumours that are out of reach or inoperable. If you have a metastatic malignant tumour, radiation is the mainstay therapy and is typically directed at the whole brain to root out unseen problems. For some benign tumours, radiation is the only treatment needed. Radiation can have serious side effects, including temporary hair loss, nausea and fatigue, as well as destruction of healthy tissue near the tumour (radiation necrosis). However studies show that for people with certain types of malignant brain tumours, it can significantly prolong life.