Radiosurgery: Brain Surgery Without The Surgery

When tumors show up in the brain, and open surgery is not an option, radiosurgery is often the therapy turned to.

Tumors that appear in the brain do so without any known cause. Therefore, the best that can be done is to deal with them when they appear because there is no known method of preventing or reducing the occurrence of brain tumors.

When a brain tumor is found, it may be discovered that surgery is not an option. This can happen if the tumor is in a non-operable area of the brain (surgery would cause too much damage to surrounding tissue), or the overall condition of a patient is such that open surgery is too much of a danger. Radiosurgery allows treatment of brain tumors without surgery. In many cases, even where surgery is an option, radiosurgery might be used in conjunction with surgery, or in replacement of it.

Advantages of radiosurgery over conventional surgery include reduced mortality and avoidance of pain and post-surgical complications, such as hemorrhaging or infection.

Radiosurgery delivers a targeted dose of radiation to the brain tumor site. Depending on the location of the tumor, sensitivity of surrounding tissue, and size of the tumor, the treatment will involve either stereostatic radiosurgery or stereostatic fractionated radiosurgery.

Stereostatic radiosurgery attempts to minimize collateral damage by directing several weaker beams of radiation that converge on the tumor at the same time. This delivers a high dose of radiation to the tumor, but minimizes exposure to surrounding tissue.

In highly sensitive cases, or where the tumor is larger, stereostatic fractionated radiosurgery delivers lower levels of radiation at a time across a period of several weeks. This minimizes damage to surrounding tissue, and also allows for damaged healthy tissue to repair itself between treatments.

Because this form of radiation treatment is directed at the head, hair loss is a very common side effect to radiosurgery along with an irritated scalp. Hair usually grows back without any problems a few months after treatment.