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brain mets & gamma knife


MJ

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i just found this article and it sounds really interesting:

http://www.irsa.org/publications/IRSAV5_2.pdf

under the "multiple metastases" area, the studies show the survial rate of those treated with the gamma knife procedure as opposed to wbr do not significantly vary regardless of the number of mets the patients had some patients had over eight lesions). i'm trying to find more info on studies. does anyone else have any ideas? my mom is scheduled to start wbr next week sometime, and i still have a feeling that it isn't completely necessary yet. but it's friday, and all the docs/oncos that i have called have left for the weekend, so my anxiety level has reached the roof. here's something "strange" for you too: my mom was supposed to start wbr on monday, but the insurance didn't go through yet and my mom's doc is out of town, so nothing can be done 'til wednesday earliest. i just find it pretty amazing that as soon as all my doubts began to really surface, the procedure was delayed. i guess God does work in mysterious ways. thanks all for listening, and i hope the info helps someone out there.

God bless,

mj

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i just read i wrote, and it came out a bit wrong...the studies show that in gamma knife VS. wbr, the results show that the gamma knife procedure has a better long-term survival rate than wbr regardless of the number of mets the patients had. thus, no matter the number of mets that the docs treated via the gamma knife (i.e. 1-2 vs. 7-8), the patients' survival rates were not significantly different amongst all the patients.

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I know i must have posted this article before, but i can't seem to find it. When my dad was doing WBR we cut out most of his supplements and just happened to leave his salmon oil and his homemade vegetable drink along with his other "off label" cancer treatments. Hopefully this combination made the difference, since he has very little if any permanent damage.

Anticancer Res. 1999 Nov-Dec;19(6C):5583-6. (Abstract)

Increased survival in brain metastatic patients treated with stereotactic radiotherapy, omega three fatty acids and bioflavonoids

Gramaglia A, Loi GF, Mongioj V, Baronzio GF

National Cancer Institute, Milan, Italy.

Stereotactic radiotherapy represents a method to effectively treat brain metastases with high precision and with high doses.

Few acute toxicities are associated with stereotactic radiotherapy, however delayed reactions may occur and after six months, 20% of patients can develop radionecrosis.

To avoid this adverse effect, in patients with metastases localized in critical brain areas, a supplementation of Omega three fatty acids and bioflavonoids has been used.

At the end of 1997, we initiated a series of retrospective studies to test the efficacy of stereotactic radiotherapy on 405 patients, and the prognostic importance on survival of various variables among which this type of supplementation.

From the comparison of various survival curves with the Cox multivariate analysis, it emerged that the patients using this supplementation had a decreased risk ratio and an improvement in survival time.

A decreased number of radionecrosis was noted.

We suggest their use as radioprotectors.

PMID: 10697622 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... t=Abstract

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