Tumors
Sophisticated Team Approach to Brain Tumor and Spine Tumor Management
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"I'm still amazed by how large the tumor was, and how fully I recovered, thanks to the great skill of Dr. Amini and the neuroscience team at Holy Cross Hospital." |
At Holy Cross Hospital, patients diagnosed with cancerous or non-cancerous brain or spine tumors gain the many advantages that multi-disciplinary team care provides: attention to their unique needs, a holistic approach to treatment and recovery—and the most advanced diagnostic and treatment options available anywhere.
Cutting Edge Diagnostic Capabilities
Tumor management begins with the hospital’s sophisticated diagnostic neuroradiology capabilities, which include a range of neuroradiology imaging tools. These techniques provide information essential to the identification of the patient’s specific type of brain tumor or spinal cord tumor.
This is the team’s first step before developing a comprehensive plan of spine or brain tumor treatment options. Diagnostic imaging tools include:
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
- Computerized tomography (CT) scans
- Bi-Plane Angiography that produces real-time images of complex structures and vessels from two different angles
Full Range of Tumor Management
Treatment of brain tumors and spinal tumors will vary from person to person, and depend on location of the tumor, whether it is cancerous (malignant) or non-cancerous (benign), and if the tumor first develops in the brain or spine (a primary tumor) or is the result of spreading (metastasis) from another location in the body. The team treats patients with a variety of complex benign and malignant tumors of the spine and brain:
- Primary brain tumors
- Metastatic brain tumors
- Pituitary tumors
- Low- and high-grade gliomas
- Glioblastoma multiforme
- Intracranial metastasis
- Meningioma
- Spinal metastasis
- Intramedullary tumors
- Astrocytoma brain tumors
- Acoustic neuroma
Collaborative Team, Advanced Treatment Options
Regardless of origin or nature of the tumor, care at Holy Cross Hospital is delivered in a collaborative approach, which may include the combined expertise of neurosurgeons, neuro-oncologists, radiation oncologists, neuroradiologists, neuro critical care experts and rehabilitation physicians.
The team utilizes a number of advanced non-surgical and surgical methods for spine and brain tumor removal:
- Stealth Neuro-Navigation System—a 3-D MRI scanned image used during surgery to plot a course for tumor removal
- Minimally invasive procedures that require few or no incisions, help speed recovery, and reduce damage to surrounding tissue:
- Transnasal procedures in which the surgeon enters the brain through the nose
- Novalis radiosurgery (stereotactic or shaped beam radiosurgery), which delivers highly targeted radiation to a tumor
- Embolism of tumors in which material to block development of tumor blood vessels is delivered through a catheter
- Microsurgery, including advanced laser scalpel techniques, which use the light of laser beams to cut or seal off a tumor
- Traditional open surgery
- Chemotherapy and radiation therapy alone or in combination
Neuro Critical Care Monitoring Unit
For many tumor patients, recovery from treatment begins in the hospital’s unique Neuro Critical Care Unit (NCCU), where a team of critical care experts stabilizes and supports critically ill patients helping them move to the next stage of recovery as quickly and successfully as possible.
For patients with malignant tumors, the full resources of the Holy Cross Hospital Cancer Institute provide a host of supportive services.