How important is your life? Do you care about your health? What if death is now inviting you? would you accept it or fight for your life?
A lot of us are experiencing different kinds of terminal illnesses like brain tumor. Some of them didn't know how to accept it and they just let the virus kill them. What if there would be a good solution in that? will you go for it?
Brain Tumor is an abnormal growth of cells within the brain and it was the second most common group of childhood cancers. If someone has it, would they go for an open-skull surgery? Just thinking about the process of that surgery makes me wanna die.
Thank God! Now there is a simple way to treat brain tumor patient. It's Gamma Knife: A non-invasive brain surgery. This is not a typical open-skull surgery where they need to crack the skull and go through the brains to get rid of the tumor. We are still not sure if the operation would be successful after they open our skull.
Gamma Knife Radiosurgery is now popular in treating patients that has brain tumors which you can ONLY experience in Philippine Gamma Knife Center at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center. Dr. Lars Leksell (Karolinska Institute in Stockholm) develop this less invasive cranial surgery method.
How does Gamma Knife Surgery done? It should be followed in four main steps only:
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| Attaching the frame - the lightweight frame will be placed on your head. Your hair doesn't need to be cut or shaved. Local anesthetic is applied where the frame is to be attached. The frame will be fixed to your head with four screws. The frame remains on your head throughout the entire procedure, in order to keep you head in a stable position during imaging and treatment. |
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| Imaging - (MRI, CT or Angiography) A coordinate box is used during imaging just to provide reference points on the images for the treatment plan. This must be done with the frame on to precisely define the location, size and shape of the treatment area. |
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| Treatment planning - After the images have been recorded, a doctor will develop a treatment plan. Other specialists in the team will produce a 3d treatment plan, tailor made for the patient and for their medical condition. It must be re-checked and approved for security reasons. |
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Treatment - Doctor will tell the patient how long the treatment will take. The treatment is silent and totally painless. Th patient will lay down on the treatment table, head frame will be attached to the collimator in the Gamma Knife system. During the treatment patient will be fully awake and able to communicate with the doctors and nurses through an audio/video connection.
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Some patients may experience a mild headache or minor swelling where the frame was attached. Remember, screws are better than grinding the entire skull. So after the treatment, patient will be able to return to their normal routines, as if no one will ever notice that you came from a surgery.
So what happened to the tumor? It is still there. Radiation treatment is designed to STOP the growth of tumors or lesions. The result will be seen after a period of months. So no worries anymore, you are still under observation until the tumor is gone.
Thank you Philippine Gamma Knife Center (Cardinal Santos Medical Center) for giving people a lot of hopes by making a great solution against brain tumors. Thanks Sir Chris and Ms. Judy (Cahilig Consultancy) for making us aware about this. We will spread this information so that a lot of people out there will be given another chance to live a normal life with Leksell Gamma Knife!
