Surgical treatment of brain glioma

The patient, male, 29 years old, had a brain glioma surgery in 2010. He felt blurry vision a few days ago. After examination, it turned out that he had a cyst in the fourth ventricle. Can he undergo another surgery in this case?

Gliomas are the most common malignant tumors in the brain, accounting for about 46% of intracranial tumors. They are characterized by infiltrative growth, with no obvious boundary with normal brain tissue. Most of them are not limited to one lobe, and they penetrate deep into the brain tissue like fingers. The main purpose of surgical resection of gliomas is to reduce the number of glioma cells, relieve tumor symptoms, temporarily reduce intracranial pressure, and complete the pathological diagnosis of tumors.

Even after surgery, gliomas are very likely to recur because the boundaries between the tumor and normal brain tissue are unclear, making it difficult to completely remove the tumor during surgery. Surgery will also activate dormant tumor cells to rapidly enter the proliferation phase, causing the tumor to become more malignant and recur within a short period of time after surgery. Some tumors growing in important parts such as the brainstem cannot be operated on at all. If it has been confirmed that it is a ventricular tumor, surgery can be performed, but the specific success rate of the surgery needs to be judged based on the patient's own situation.

Tips: Postoperative adjuvant radiotherapy for brain glioma is meaningless

Only when the radiation dose reaches 73-80Gy can glioma cells be effectively killed, while the dose that normal brain tissue can tolerate is only 60Gy, which is actually only a radiation therapy for the fragile brain tissue itself.