Syed Basharat SRINAGAR, Jan 1: Around 200 new cases of brain tumor, which mainly come from district Srinagar and Baramulla are registered at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) every year.
This was revealed by the experts in neurology during a one-day symposium on brain tumors particularly on Gliomas-the commonest brain tumors organized by the department of Surgical Neurology, SKIMS Soura today.
Experts on this occasion said that brain tumor may arise from the brain itself, its cavities (ventricles), its coverings (meninges), the skull bone or the blood vessels.
About half of them are malignant (cancerous) and the remaining are benign (non-cancerous).
Brain tumors are treatable, often more than one modality of treatment is needed to effectively treat them, Prof Mohammad Afzal Wani, head of the department of Surgical Neurology SKIMS said.
The location of the tumor and its expected type (based on investigations) along with the age and condition of the patient, determine risks versus benefits of a particular treatment, he added.
The usual symptoms include headache, seizures, weakness in one arm or a leg or one side of the body, or one side of the face, loss/diminution of vision in one or both eyes, loss, diminution of hearing, difficulty in swallowing, Prof Wani, said while adding that diagnosing and treating these tumors that afflict the most intricate organ system of human body obviously needs highly trained and skilled doctors with advanced facilities.
Director SKIMS, Dr Abdul Hamid Zargar on this occasion said it was Institute's endeavour to not only provide state of the art surgical and medical treatment to all of these patients but also provide support to the family members through the trying times.
"Surgery is the mainstay of treatment for brain tumors, experts said on this occasion.
Other modalities like radiotherapy chemotherapy work as adjuncts and are best after the bulk of the tumor has been surgically removed.
For benign tumors apart from surgery no further treatment is required.ÿ For malignant tumors, surgery combined with radiotherapy provides the best results," Dr Zargar added.
Experts also delivered a talk on the 'Gamma Knife' which is a system that uses multiple radiation source to stereo-tactically deliver a high concentrated dose of radiation to a target deep inside the brain, without much exposure to the surrounding normal brain, thus reducing the harmful side effects of radiation.
They further observed that even as the described destruction of abnormal tissue is obtained with much greater efficiency than is ever possible with normal radiotherapy.ÿ This can only be used for brain lesions of certain types.
Cyber knife, a liner accelerator based radiation system which does the same thing that a Gamma Knife does with the additional advantage that with it, all parts of the body can be treated.
"With acquiring of linear accelerator SKIMS will be in a better position to treat these patients", director SKIMS said.
The overall incidence of Gliomas in the USA is estimated at about 5 per 100,000 person-years, with approximately 13,000 new cases per year and 10,000 deaths.
While discussing the experience at SKIMS faculty during the symposium revealed that the overall incidence of Gliomas at SKIMS (hospital based data) is new cases of approximately 200 brain tumors per year in a population of 600,000.
The modest one per cent increase in the incidence of brain tumors has been seen at SKIMS over the past four years.
Analysis of last four years data at SKIMS has shown early onset of the disease, male predominance and majority of patients came from districts of Srinagar and Baramulla.
On this occasion Prof Mehrajuddin, Ex-Director SKIMS was the Chief Guest.
Faculty who spoke on the occasion included Dr Altaf Kirmani, Dr Altaf Ramzan, Dr Abdul Rashid, Dr Sarabjit, Dr Abrar and others.
Dean Dr G J Qadri also addressed the gathering.
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