Top of Page Stereotactic radiosurgery Also called a gamma knife, stereotactic radiosurgery is a remarkable new technique that allows doctors to treat brain tumors without ever making an incision. A sophisticated computer system is used to construct a 3-D model of the patient s tumor and mark its exact location. Radiation beams are then aimed at the tumor from several directions, aggressively attacking the tumor, but sparing surrounding brain tissue from radiation exposure. Top of Page Chemotherapy Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to treat cancer. These drugs are taken orally or intravenously and travel throughout the body, destroying cancers cells that may have spread away from the original tumor site.
Most chemotherapy treatments consist of more than one drug.
This is called combination chemotherapy. Chemotherapy can be administered in pill form or intravenously, or both. In hormone therapy, drugs are used to interfere with hormone production, or hormone actions, to kill cancer cells or slow cancer growth. These drugs are taken orally or intravenously as part of chemotherapy, and usually in conjunction with other forms of treatment, such as surgery or radiation therapy.