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At Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, we are focused on the needs of our community.
We are designated as a Neuroscience Center of Excellence and continually
strive to bring the most current
and technologically advanced care to our patients.
Brain tumors are one of the most common forms of cancer in children.
Because there are over a hundred forms of brain tumors
and because pediatric brain tumors differ from those in adults,
the evaluation and treatment regime
requires a comprehensive team of specialists from pediatrics,
oncology,
radiation, pathology
and neuroscience to collaborate on the best plan for each patient.
Gamma knife is a very selective form of radiation therapy.
It's the same sort of radiation that you get when you get a chest x-ray.
The only difference is that the radiation beams are so
incredibly focused
and all converge in one spot
so that one target gets all of the radiation and the rest of the brain
through which the radiation beams pass
gets basically no radiation or very limited radiation. So it's a very
highly targeted form of radiation treatment. We don't really know what
causes of pediatric brain tumor. We think that there's some predisposition that
the patient has that leads to
some alteration in their DNA that then causes this out of control growth
of the cancer cell
but no one really understands why that happens.
In terms of what sort of symptoms one might get, of the most common typically
is headache
oftentimes associated with some nausea or vomiting.
Depending on the location of the tumor, you might have their other neurological
symptoms such as a vision changes or hearing problems.
Or in Taylor's case just an excessive growth condition which is how she
presented.
Taylor was diagnosed with acromegaly. Many people who know it as gigantisism
and we were referred by our pediatrician into the Sutter group and
I did a lot of research and really felt like Sutter picked us because all the
research I did kept pointing me back to Sutter
and our relationship that once we met Dr. Ciricillo, our relationship
as a family has been wonderful. He took us in, he's kept the communication
very clear and very easy to understand and that's helped us feel very comfortable.
Well, at Sutter, we're fortunate to have a vast multidisciplinary team available to
us.
So, because these patients with neuro oncological problems are so complicated, they
really require a broad spectrum of treatment strategies and that includes
obviously, pediatric neurosurgeons and pediatric neuro oncologists but a host of
social workers and case managers and child life experts
all of whom come together to provide
the support to the family and the education to the child in the family
that's needed.
That really, I think, sets us apart from most of the other centers in the region.
Well, our surgery went just as planned and Dr. Ciricillo took the time to
explain step-by-step
what we can expect even take the time to tell us what's going to happen after
surgery.
When we got to the hospital,
someone, a coordinator took the time to explain what rooms we're going to go in,
how everything works in every room that we're going to be waiting in,
and how long everything was going to take.
We were kept informed throughout the process
and it just went perfectly smooth, just as they told us it was going to go.
Gamma Knife is an outpatient procedures so there is really very little in the way of
recovery time associated with it.
In children because they are sedated for the procedure they have to obviously
wake up from their general anaesthetic
but that's typically thirty minutes or so in a recovery room
and at that point where they have a couple of bandages on their scalp and go
home and resume their normal activities that evening.
It took me about seven days to going back to playing soccer and getting ready to go back to school.
There are a number of different treatment options. The first, though, is
always is surgery and that's because
in a large percentage of pediatric brain tumors the only therapy that the child's
ever going to need is going to be surgical removal.
After surgery is done, we know exactly what type of tumor that we're dealing
with, we may then need to go on to definitive treatment with alternatives
such as radiation or chemotherapy.
Because children are often in their growing and developing years we want to
make sure that they have every opportunity to neurologically develop
without the damaging, potentially damaging, effect of radiation so we
oftentimes will proceed with chemotherapy upfront even though we know
we're really just buying some additional time for the developing nervous system
to occur at which point then we transition over to more definitive
treatment with radiation.
Some advice
that I can give other families in a similar experience as ours is
don't overdo it your internet research. I learned that from personal experience.
I found
information out there that was
scary
and horrific and found
that really didn't relate to our case.
Ask your doctor
where you should do your research and don't be afraid to research the
doctor you've been referred to. I took the time to track down some patients and
prior patients of Dr. Ciricillo's and being able to talk face to face
voice to voice with those individuals that's what really helped us feel
confident in our decision
At Sutter
our brain tumor program is the most comprehensive in the Sacramento region
and one of the few programs in the nation that
specializes in pediatric brain tumors
with a full complement of services.
Through our brain tumor board,
patients receive the attention of a multi-disciplinary
team and a treatment plan that incorporates the best practices.
evidence based medicine,
and family centered care.
To learn more about the Sutter Neuroscience Institute, call:
888-287-2270
or visit www.sutterneuro.org