What is the treatment of brain tumors?
Are used anticonvulsants and corticosteroids as supportive therapy in some patients.
Definitive treatment includes surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
In low grade gliomas the recommended treatment is surgery and radiation. We recommend intermediate-dose radiotherapy (50 Gy) and has been shown that the administration of radiation therapy in the postoperative period does not increase the survival of these patients with respect to administered when the disease progresses, but increases the time in which the tumor is controlled.
In high grade gliomas treatment has demonstrated improved survival is the combination of surgery (when feasible), radiation at a dose greater than in low grade gliomas and chemotherapy.
The postoperative treatment component has been shown greater benefit for radiation and for this reason it is recommended to administer an adequate dose (60 Gy) in a confined volume of sophisticated techniques to exclude outside the radiation field the largest proportion of healthy brain tissue avoid toxicity.
This uses various innovative techniques such as three-dimensional radiotherapy formed, radiation therapy with intensity modulation of the beam and stereotactic techniques. They have incorporated new chemotherapeutic drugs that have shown activity (15-30% response) in high-grade tumors such as temozolomide, taxanes, irinotecan.
What kind of brain tumors are there?
Cancer can occur anywhere in the brain or spinal cord. Cancer cells are abnormal cells that divide too often and without any order.