Meningioma diagnosis
in Health ·
copperlynx22 said:Who actually handed down the diagnosis? The reality is that meningiomas aren't exactly fast growers, but depending on where they’ve decided to set up camp, a neurosurgeon will decide if surgery is the way to go. Sometimes the move is just to wait and watch how things evolve, while other times you can handle it with Gamma Knife—which means no skull opening—provided the tumor isn't too massive. As far as I know, in the US, Gamma Knife is mainly available at the Mayo Clinic, where Dr. Heinrich handles those cases.
If surgery is on the table, you have to figure out if a full resection is even possible or if the location makes being too invasive a bad idea. There are also hybrid approaches where surgeons perform a craniotomy to take out what they can, then follow up later with Gamma Knife—basically, if cutting everything out would be too risky and threaten the kind of quality of life someone actually wants to live.
Besides the neurosurgeons at the Mayo Clinic working with Dr. Paladin, I believe Dr. Chudy over at the General Hospital in Brooklyn is quite excellent. I think there was some talk about them acquiring a Gamma Knife soon, so it might be worth asking around.
On a lighter note, brain lining tumors are benign in over 90% of cases; about 7% fall into that "atypical" gray area, and only about 2% are actually malignant.
Thanks for such a thorough breakdown.
The Diagnoza was made in San Francisco.
Word on the street is that the big university hospitals and the Mayo Clinic are the best places for this sort of thing. At least, that's what people say.
I wonder how much of a headache it is to get on a waiting list for that Gamma Knife treatment if it ends up being necessary?