Treatment of brain cancer

Surgery is the most basic treatment for brain cancer. However, since the tumor grows in an infiltrative manner and has no clear boundary with the brain tissue, it is still a long way from being completely cured. Therefore, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy are extremely necessary after surgical resection. They are of great benefit to prolonging the patient's life and improving the quality of life. Patients with increased intracranial pressure need to undergo dehydration treatment at the same time.

1. Surgical treatment

The purpose of surgical treatment is to clarify the diagnosis, improve symptoms, reduce tumor burden, remove necrotic and hypoxic tissue, and create conditions for other treatments. The principle of surgical treatment is to remove the tumor as much as possible while preserving nerve function. If the early tumor is small and located in an appropriate position, it can be completely removed.

2. Radiotherapy

Regardless of the degree of malignancy of brain cancer, patients who receive radiotherapy after surgery have a longer survival time than those who undergo surgery alone. During or after radiotherapy, the patient's symptoms and signs will improve to varying degrees, and it is one of the important adjuvant treatments for brain cancer. Therefore, radiotherapy should be performed as soon as possible after the general condition recovers after surgery; it can usually be started 1-2 weeks after surgery.

3. Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy for brain cancer tends to combine several drugs to increase efficacy and reduce toxicity. Clinically, drugs are selected based on cell dynamics and the specificity of the drug to the cell cycle, such as the combination of nitroso drugs with VCII and PCB, or with VM26, ADM, MTX (methotrexate), BLXd (bleomycin), etc.

4. Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy for brain cancer, including active immunization with tumor vaccines, injection of immune RNA into lymph nodes, and application of cell adoptive immunity, are all under study. Non-specific immunomodulators such as levamisole, PSK, PSP, etc. are also in clinical use, which can reduce the reaction of radiotherapy and chemotherapy and enhance immunity.