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Dr. Lawenda Discusses Brain Tumor Management

KNDU/NBC TV “Living Well” Show: Dr. Lawenda Discusses Brain Tumor Management (August 19, 2017)
In most cases, patients with brain tumors have time to gather information about their condition (workup, staging, treatment, surveillance.) In this video segment, I discuss the basics of how we approach a new brain tumor diagnosis. I explain how we come up with treatment plans and what to do if/when a brain tumor recurs. I also address integrative oncology, as it pertains to brain tumor care.
Brain Tumor Facts
Guidelines Based Workup and Treatment
Each brain tumor type is managed differently based on the pathology subtype, whether it’s a primary or metastatic brain tumor, location in the brain, age, health status, neurologic and other functional deficits, prior treatments and many other factors.
We use guidelines (such as the one below for high-grade gliomas: anaplastic gliomas and glioblastomas) to help us work-up and make evidence-based, state of the art treatment recommendations. These guidelines are developed by subject matter experts from the top academic cancer centers that specialize in the management of brain tumors. These experts meet multiple times each year to review the latest data from published studies and make updates to the guidelines.
Multidisciplinary Brain Tumor Team

Most brain tumor centers of excellence have a team of experts that are dedicated to the complex management of brain tumors.

Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) and Electric Field Therapy/Tumor Treating Fields (TTF)

Management of Brain Tumor Recurrences

If a brain tumor recurs, we often use expert panel consensus guidelines to help us workup and manage the recurrence in the most up to date, evidence-based manner. As you can see in the example below (for recurrent anapestic gliomas and GBMs), we follow an algorithm approach that is based on the opinions of the top brain tumor experts (in this case, the NCCN Brain Tumor expert panel.)

Integrative Oncology Approach

As an integrative oncologist, our role is to take a holistic approach to the care of our patients. This involves assessing their treatments, side effects, physical condition, psychoemotional state, lifestyle factors, and making evidence-based recommendations that take all of these into account to help optimize outcomes and quality of life.

Resources

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About Brian D. Lawenda, M.D.

I am an integrative oncologist. I trained at Massachusetts General Hospital (Harvard Medical School) in radiation oncology and through Stanford-UCLA (Helms Medical Institute) in medical acupuncture. I am the founder of IntegrativeOncology-Essentials.

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