Treatment for brain tumours generally includes a combination of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgery and tumour treating fields, but will depend on the stage of your cancer and treatment preference. 1
- Surgery– in some cases surgery can remove all (total resection) or some (partial resection or biopsy) of the tumour to help either manage symptoms or remove the cancer completely.3
- Chemotherapy– are specific drugs that destroy cancer cells (although they can also destroy healthy cells which can lead to side-effects).4 Using chemotherapy drugs to treat brain cancer can be difficult due to the blood brain barrier, which is an ‘inbuilt’ protection system stopping harmful substances in the blood, from reaching the brain.4
- Radiation therapy– uses targeted radiation to destroy cancer cells. It is often given once a day, every day for a set number of weeks.5
- Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) – is a specific type of targeted radiotherapy that can be used to treat small brain tumours and those tumours that can’t be treated with surgery or that have metastasised (tumours that have spread to the brain from other areas of the body). It involves a special type of high-dose radiotherapy that target affected areas in the brain whilst avoiding healthy brain tissue.5
- Stereotactic Radiation Therapy (SRT) – can be used to treat both cancerous and benign tumours. It involves a longer course of highly targeted radiotherapy treatment.5
- Tumour Treating Field – uses electric fields tuned to specific frequencies to disrupt cell division, inhibiting tumour growth and potentially destroying cancer cells.
Medications including steroids and anti-seizure drugs may also be given along with the above treatments to help relieve symptoms.2