BREATHING FOR YOUR BRAIN
Radiation is often used to treat patients with brain tumors. But many times, the radiation treatments leave behind damaged brain tissue. Now, researchers may have found a way to stop and even reverse that problem.
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Dave Clark doesn't need a video store. He catches a movie every weekday -- at the hospital.
Dave spends five days a week, 130 minutes a day, in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to treat brain injury after radiation. He's had two brain tumors removed in the last 4 years.
Dave Clark
Had brain tumors
"Ironically, the day after my daughter was born was my first day of chemo."
Doctor Laurie Beth Gesell, a hyperbaric medicine expert, says the damaged brain tissue leads to a variety of problems.
Laurie Beth Gesell, M.D.
Hyberbaric Medicine Specialist
University Hospital
Cincinnati, OH
"They might have numbness. They might have thinking problems. They might have speaking problems. They might have things as generalized as just severe headaches."
Typically steroids are used to treat tissue damage.
Doctor Gesell hopes breathing in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber will be a better option.
The MRI on the left shows a pattern of brain tissue damage surrounded by swelling. The MRI on the right shows the difference after several months of hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
Laurie Beth Gesell, M.D.
"For the most part, hyperbarics is an incredibly safe type of treatment. All it is, is that we have a person breathe oxygen, and we pressurize that oxygen."
MRI's show the treatment improves nearly eighty percent of patients. Dave is one of them. And he says the movies are a bonus.
Doctor Gesell says 90 percent of the patients in the study also show improvement during physical examinations.
BRAIN RADIATION INJURY: Radiation is often used to treat patients with brain tumors. But many times, the radiation treatments leave behind damaged tissue, which leads to dead brain tissue. The likelihood of this happening depends on factors such as the type of radiation received, if a patient received chemotherapy additionally, or if a patient had received radiation therapy previously. The incidence of developing radiation damage ranges from about 3 percent of the people exposed to reports as high as 50 percent of those exposed. The standard approach to this problem is to first detect it on an MRI or some kind of scan. Often, the patient does not have clinical symptoms at that time. Many times, the person is just observed to see if the problem will go away or if it will progress. If the injury pattern does progress and the patient begins developing clinical symptoms, the patient is placed on steroid management. Patients will go on a high dose of steroids and then potentially have to increase and continuously escalate the steroid dose to control symptoms and stop disease progression.
SYMPTOMS: Symptoms can vary. They depend on where the injury is located. Symptoms can be similar to those of stroke victims, where a person might have weakness in a particular part of their body. They could also have numbness, thinking problems, or even just severe headaches.
HYPERBARICS: The goal of hyperbaric oxygen treatment is improving the quality of damaged tissue and reversing the disease, instead of just potentially masking the problems or stopping the progression. Laurie Beth Gesell, M.D., a specialist in hyperbaric medicine, has been treating patients with brain radiation injury for about seven years. Dr. Gesell says more than 90 percent of all patients who have gone through the hyperbaric treatments have reported feeling physically better from them. Also, more than 90 percent either had stabilization, meaning their problems did not progress, or had improvement or complete resolution based on the findings in a physical exam. More than 80 percent of patients were able to stop increasing their steroid dosages, decrease their dosages, or completely stop using steroids without having disease progression. More than 70 percent of patients had stabilization, resolution, or improvement on a MRI.
HOW IT WORKS: The therapy works by patients breathing in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for about two hours at a time, five days a week, for two to three months. Their oxygen is pressurized, producing the kind of sensation one may have from flying in an airplane. That raises the patient's oxygen level in his/her body.
ELIGIBILITY: Dr. Gesell says for the most part, anyone who has brain radiation injury of some variety is eligible to be a candidate for the therapy.
Pat Samson
Media Relations
University Hospital
Health Alliance Business Center
Cincinnati, OH 45229
(513) 585-6163
samsonpa@healthall.com
Copyright © 2005 Ivanhoe Broadcast News, Inc.
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