Brain cancer treatment

Brain cancer or tumors treatment usually done a treatment team consist of several specialist doctors; a pathologist, radiation oncologist, medical or neuro-oncologist, and a neurosurgeon. The treatment of brain cancer is complicated since the destructive cells invaded the most sensitive nerve system in human body, the brain. Thus the treatment must be conducted with most care.

Brain tumor treatments aim for the patient recovery from the disease, slowing the tumor growth or simply to help relieving the symptoms. There even cases where no treatment method can be suggested due to the severe condition of the disease.

Surgical procedures, radiotherapy and chemotherapy are the most common treatments for this disease. The selection of the treatment type and the combination of more than one treatment is conducted to reach the best chance of patient survival.

Surgery
Surgical procedure approaches for brain cancer treatment include complete removal of the tumor (resection) or as much as possible removal of the disease (debulking).

The resection will be performed if the tumors are small and easy to operate and separated from the surrounding healthy tissue. If the tumor invaded part of the brain that considered as sensitive areas then the debulking procedure is more preferred. The removal of even a tiny piece of brain tumor can help relieving the painful symptoms and make patient feel more comfortable.

Surgical procedure carries some risks for the patient. It can cause infection, bleeding to nerve damage.

Radio Therapy
Radio therapy can be used for surgery alternative of in conjunction with surgery. If the disease cannot be removed with surgery then one point focused radio therapy can be used instead.

Radio therapy can also be used after surgery by emitting the beam to the whole brain to eliminate the remaining destructive cells.

This procedure can cause some side effects such as headaches, fatigue and irritation.

Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is recommended for relieving the cancer sign symptoms of advanced brain or to eliminate the cells that growing back. Chemotherapy drugs usually taken as a pill but sometimes it can be injected during the surgery or injected to the vein.

This procedure usually causes the patient to experience hair loss, nausea and vomiting.

Targeted drug therapy
This treatment is uncommon for brain cancer treatment but it has been shown positive result in the past. Some targeted drug methods are still in the clinical trial phase. This procedure will only be used if there is abnormalities found in the tumors and thus it can be blocked by the targeted drug and cause the cells to die.