Overview of Clinical Services for Brain Cancer
The Stanford Neuro-Oncology Program is comprehensive, full-service, and well coordinated, offering quality care based on clinical investigation. The program is divided into three service areas: adult, pediatric, and radiosurgery.
For information about the pediatric program, please see Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
A Team Approach
The Stanford Cancer Center operates on a multidisciplinary approach that brings together a comprehensive, highly specialized team of board-certified physicians dedicated to tailoring special individualized treatment plans for each individual’s cancer.
Neuro-oncology program physicians work closely with colleagues in medical oncology, bone marrow transplant, social work, rehabilitative medicine, the epilepsy program, neuropsychology, complementary medicine, and the hospice program. The neuro-oncology tumor board meets weekly to discuss the cases of 10 to 15 patients with brain tumors.
With all your doctors working together, you can be assured that all possible treatment approaches have been considered and the one that is best for you is put into place.
Stanford Expertise
When you are being treated for cancer you want a physician who is familiar with your particular disease. Yet because many types of brain tumors are relatively rare it can be difficult to find a doctor who has treated patients with your kind of cancer.
Our specialists at the Cancer Center not only treat brain tumors, but have expertise managing complex cases, and offer the most advanced diagnostic technologies and treatments available today.
The program is defined by expertise in:
- Primary, malignant, and benign brain and spinal cord tumors
- Metastatic central nervous system (CNS) disease
- Paraneoplastic syndromes
- Neurological complications of malignant disease
- Late effects and complications of disease or treatment
Diagnosis and Treatment
Services include:
- Neuroradiology expertise, including PET (positron emission tomography) and magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy
- Neurosurgical expertise, including:
- Intraoperative MRI
- Intraoperative speech mapping
- Advanced computer navigation tools
- Radiation therapy expertise, including:
- 3-D conformal radiation (computer-guided radiation to deliver high doses with fewer side effects) using state-of-the-art linear accelerators with advanced, more comfortable immobilization techniques.
- Intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) that allows doctors to deliver a high dose of radiation to the tumor site while a patient is still in the operating room during surgery. One-time IORT is more convenient than traditional radiotherapy and reduces the exposure of healthy tissues to radiation.
- Intensity modulated radiation (IMRT) that reduces the dose of radiation received by healthy tissue, and can allow doctors to deliver radiation to difficult-to-reach areas.
- Brachytherapy -- the placement of radioactive materials at the tumor site to deliver more targeted radiation therapy and make treatment more convenient.
- Radiosurgery
Stanford's radiosurgery program ranks among the best in the world. We offer frameless and framed stereotactic radiation, a method for delivering precise doses of radiation down to millimeter accuracy. We offer a variety of forms of stereotactic radiosurgery for malignant and benign tumors of the brain, base of skull, and spine.
Access to Experimental Therapies
Cancer Center physicians actively study new therapies for patients with brain tumors. For example, we have open clinical trials for evaluation of the CyberKnife radiosurgery device.
When appropriate, patients are invited to participate in studies to investigate the newest treatments as well as large-scale clinical trials for more established treatments.
Preserving Your Quality of Life
Brain tumors, or neurological complications of other cancers, often have profound implications for patients and their families. Caring for patients with neuro-oncological disease is a complex task that requires input from many specialists. Yet we recognize that treatment needs to go beyond just medical care.
To help families cope with the many stresses of brain cancer, the program coordinates patient care with rehabilitation services, home care services, social services, and hospice services as needed by individual patients.
Faculty Physicians
|
