A journey through brain cancer treatment
Treating brain cancer is a team effort, when a person is suspected of having a brain tumour they’ll begin their journey through treatment, starting with the first stop - Neuroradiology.
When a person presents to the hospital with symptoms that could be caused by a brain tumour, the first step would be to see the neuroradiology department. The scans taken would then need to be examined by a specialist neuroradiologist to provide their diagnosis of the presumed brain tumour.
"Some patients who come to the hospital with a headache or who’ve had a fall, would sometimes have a computed tomography (CT) scan in the emergency department. And usually, with the CT scan, we can see the abnormality and then we can refer the patient to neurosurgery or neurology – and at that point, the next scan that we would do, would be an magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. An MRI scan is typically the modality of choice to try and characterise the brain tumour,” said Director of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine Professor Meng Law.
Next step Neurosurgery
When a presumed brain tumour is seen by a specialist neuroradiologist on a CT or MRI scan, they refer the person to onto neurosurgery or neurology.
The neurosurgeon will talk to the patient about having brain surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible - if it is safe to do so. During this surgery a sample of the tumour is sent to a neuropathologist to determine the severity and type of the tumour, so further treatment can be planned.
Neuropathology after surgery
During the surgery for a brain tumour, a sample of the tumour tissue is taken and sent to the neuropathology lab for a diagnosis.
A brain tumour can be low grade or high grade, the grades predict prognosis and help determine treatment of that tumour type. Once the type of tumour has been identified it will help the neurosurgeon, radiation oncologist and neuro-oncologist plan treatment specifically tailored for the patient.
