“ is essentially sending waves of radiation at a tumor to try to keep the cells from replicating as quickly,” Chavera said. Linus is currently at WSU for radiation therapy which will cost around $5,000, Chen-Allen said. She said the surgeries occurred about four months ago which cost about $12,000 to $15,000. “And we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to see if we could it.” It’s hard enough to treat one brain tumor, not to say three,” Chen-Allen said. “I think it’s crazy from the standpoint that he had three brain tumors. They waited two weeks before they did the second surgery to let the brain swelling decrease. “Without the 3D printing, there’s no way you can mimic what happens in surgery outside of surgery,” Chen-Allen said. They made four or five skullcaps, each one different in width and length, to see which one would be the best fit for Linus, Chavera said. The PMMA was shaped to the 3D-printed brain. Since they had a mold, they could create the top of the skull, called the skullcap, outside of surgery using PMMA, Chen-Allen said. printed both the skull and the swollen brain using a 3D printer, so they would know how much the brain had swollen beyond the skull, Chen-Allen said. “The only way to create a skull template was to do it outside of surgery,” she said. They wanted to get the third tumor out, and they needed to protect Linus’ brain, so they did a second surgery, she said.īefore the second surgery, they created a skull template, Chen-Allen said. They were concerned Linus would not wake up from the anesthesia, she said, but he recovered well. They were unable to use PMMA for Linus during his first surgery because it would burn his brain, Chen-Allen said. The substance heats up beyond boiling temperature and then hardens. When added to liquid it becomes a putty-like substance, Chen-Allen said. In this type of surgery they use a powder called polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA). They were unable to put Linus’ skull back because it might have tumor cells on it, Chen-Allen said.
HOW TO GET PUTTY FOR WSU SKIN
“Because we couldn’t remove the third tumor and because the brain was really swollen, we couldn’t do a skull template, and so we just closed the skin up knowing the brain’s not protected,” Chen-Allen said. They had to prepare for this since he has the rarest blood type in cats, Type B. When blood pressure gets low enough, the heart becomes unable to pump blood to vital organs, such as the brain, Chen-Allen said.ĭue to loss of blood, Linus had to undergo a blood transfusion. Anesthesiologists thought a drop in blood pressure could become an issue, she said. There was no time to remove the third tumor because of the swelling.
“We got to a point where the brain was really swollen as we were removing the tumor, and the blood pressure started to drop significantly,” Chen-Allen said.
They were only able to remove two tumors in the first surgery, not all three as they had planned, Chen-Allen said.Ĭhavera said she drilled holes into the skull to remove it and get to the brain. There were three separate tumors, which she said is abnormal.Ĭhen-Allen performed the surgery with Jessica Chavera, a second-year neurology resident. Meningioma is a type of brain tumor that arises between internal and external coverings of the brain, Faculty Neurologist Annie Chen-Allen said. A team of WSU doctors treated multiple meningioma tumors in a cat’s brain last year.
0 kommentar(er)
