Surgery is usually not used if the patient has more than one brain tumor. Depending on their tumor type, patients may receive radiation as their sole treatment. Radiation may also be used before or after chemotherapy, but our data, as well as others, show that chemotherapy is more effective prior to radiation. Studies also show that radiation has fewer side effects when chemotherapy is done first. Chemotherapy affects tumor cells by stopping their rapid growth or division.
Chemotherapy is given by pill or injection into a vein, an artery or the cerebral spinal fluid.
Because some drugs work better together, patients often receive more than one chemotherapy agent. With Chemotherapy Blood-Brain Barrier Disruption therapy is an intensive, effective method of delivering chemotherapy to brain tumors. Well-tolerated by the vast majority of our patients, BBBD treatment allows the passage of chemotherapy drugs through the protective barrier that lines the blood vessels of the brain. This maximizes the delivery of those drugs to the tumor and brain around the tumor. When compared to standard chemotherapy, the BBBD procedure increases the delivery of the drugs to the tumor and its surrounding area by tenfold to a hundredfold.