John Hopkins doctor underlines quality of life in treatment of braincancer.

[caption id="attachment_4309" align="alignleft" width="256" caption="Cerebral lobes of the brain"][/caption]

Carol Forsloff - This idea of living longer, but not living very well with brain cancer
worries Alfredo Quinones, M.D., so he stresses quality not just quantity
of life and a special multi-faceted approach.



Quinones, who is Director of Brain Tumor Surgery at John Hopkins University


Quinones has expertise in looking at the various aspects of brain cancer and 
"minimizing collateral damage," the euphemistic way of saying trying to
reduce the elements of the disease so that people can be as comfortable
as possible.


“Brain cancer is sort of the bastard child of cancer,”says Quinones.
“There are about 3,000 new cases a month of the very malignant cancer,
like Senator

Ted Kennedy had.” Thousands more people develop secondary brain tumors –
offshoots of cancer that originate elsewhere, say in the lungs, and
somehow find their way to the brain. “Once cancers get to the brain,
people tend to give up on these patients. But there are so many simple
things we can do,” he says, to have an immediate result on quality of
life, and possibly prolong survival. For example, simply treating
depression and controlling blood sugar levels can make a big difference.


Educating the medical community about how small things can make a big
difference in the quality of life for cancer patients is something
Quinones says is very important.  That's because cancer has so many
facets.


Today, the prognosis for someone diagnosed with an aggressive brain
tumor is devastating; the average survival is just 15 months. “Can we
make it 20 months,”says Quinones. “Then, can we make it 40 months?Ten
years?” But – and this is huge – can those be good years? “Or are those
going to be patients who have absolutely no memory, their brains
potentially fried by radiation, severely impaired. We have to find ways
to minimize the collateral damage that we do through surgery and
adjuvant treatment.” The length of survival is 
meaningless, he adds, “if you’re bedridden, you don’t recognize your loved ones, if you have no memory.”


Quinones is convinced that research on the multiple aspects of brain
cancer and looking at the quality of life as well as the length of life
in the treatment of the disease will be the key to changing how patients
are treated.


This is not rocket science,” he says, “but no one asks,especially with
brain cancer patients, how the family is doing. How are the caregivers
coping? This is honestly part of the big picture; quality of life is not independent.
We are building that infrastructure for long-term follow-up.” Quinones has been concerned for a longtime about the complications of brain cancer and that while doctors look at prolonging the life of their patients, he says it is also important to look at that quality of life that should go with it.