Dr. Shon William Cook, MD

It depends entirely on the type of tumor. Some cell types respond to chemotherapy, and others don't.

About 3 cm.

It's not from the surgery. It may be from whatever you had the surgery for, as you didn't include what brain surgery you had or why you had it. It could also be from any number of other things unrelated to your brain. I would bring it up to your doctor if it continues.

It depends on whether the tumor is causing your symptoms or not. If it is unrelated, without knowing the size or location of the tumor, I cannot tell you whether it would be causing those symptoms or not. Even if it is, they may or may not resolve if the tumor is removed, depending on whether the affected brain or nerves have been permanently damaged already or not. This is a question best answered by your treating physician that can see your images and knows your exam.

It depends. If the surgery involved one of the speech areas of the brain, then yes it could have. Without knowing what surgery he had, and what it was done for, and where the surgery was in his brain, I can't really answer whether it can be corrected or not.

I'm not sure why you were told 3 weeks. He may be back to normal in a few days, or 3 weeks, or he may never get back to normal. You won't really know how he will ultimately end up for up to about 2 years. At that point, you can pretty much bet that's as good as he's going to get. Until then, the harder he works at rehab, the better he will do.

"Back surgery" is not specific enough to know what you are going to have done. "Back surgery" could mean a minimally invasive outpatient discectomy, or a multilevel scoliosis correction and fusion. I can tell you that no matter what surgery you have, the better shape you are in before surgery, the faster you will recover and the easier it will be. So exercise, lose weight if necessary, and stop smoking if you do.

In the brain, it doesn't matter. Brain tumors kill people by crushing or destroying important structures of the brain. Calling them cancer, or benign, or malignant, is really irrelevant to the treatment or the prognosis. The decision to treat a tumor in the brain depends on its size, location, growth rate, and ultimately tissue type. If it does need to be treated because it is growing or causing symptoms, then a tissue diagnosis will be obtained at the time of surgery to determine whether any further treatment is necessary after surgery.

It could be any number of things, related to the surgery or not. She should start with her primary care doctor and go from there.

This question is unfortunately not specific enough to answer it reliably in a way that would be applicable to you specifically. Options for blood clots within the substance of the brain (intraparenchymal) include doing nothing and allowing it to absorb on its own, tPA infusion through a catheter placed into your brain, and either endoscopic or open surgery. Each option has its own risks and benefits. Without knowing your particular neurologic exam, and without seeing your particular imaging, it is impossible to have a rational discussion of the pros and cons of each option, and which would be best for you. It is a discussion your neurologist and/or neurosurgeon would have with you.

This question is unfortunately not specific enough to answer it reliably in a way that would be applicable to your mother specifically. Options for blood clots within the substance of the brain (intraparenchymal) include doing nothing and allowing it to absorb on its own, tPA infusion through a catheter placed into the brain in the ICU, and either endoscopic or open surgery. Each option has its own risks and benefits. Without knowing your mother's particular neurologic exam, and without seeing your mother's particular imaging, it is impossible to have a rational discussion of the pros and cons of each option, and which would be best for her. It is a discussion your neurologist and/or neurosurgeon would have with you.

If it needed surgery, I assume it was either open and contaminated, or it was depressed enough to be compressing the underlying brain. If that is the case, surgery took care of the problem. There is nothing that needs to heal now except the incision, which will heal like any skin wound. Your dad's surgeon is the best person to ask about your dad specifically, as only the person that was there during surgery can say specifically what to expect after that specific surgery.

Yes. The cure is complete removal. Sometimes that is possible, and sometimes it isn't if it has invaded structures that can not be removed without catastrophic consequences. If it is growing, or if it is causing a neurologic deficit, or it is causing seizures that can not be controlled with medicine, then it should be removed. Even if it can not be completely removed, the vast majority can be removed, and then it can be followed with imaging for several years and treated with radiation if it starts to grow back. If it grows after radiation, and gets big enough to cause problems again, it can be removed again. Almost all of my meningioma patients go the morning after surgery with an incision that is completely hidden by their hair. Most are back to work in a few days and nobody can tell they had surgery.

I'm not sure how to answer this without talking to him, examining him, and looking at his MRI. There are a lot of things to address here. First, spinal stenosis only needs to be treated if the cauda equina is compressed and you have claudication symptoms. Otherwise, spinal stenosis is irrelevant and does not need to be treated. Second, there is no "laser treatment" for the spine. Lasers are used in surgery for tissue removal and cautery. If your father has neurologic deficits from nerve compression in the spine, then the treatment for that is to decompress the nerves. The laser can be used, but it does not make the surgery any safer or the recovery any shorter. There is no reason to use the laser in the spine. I routinely decompress the cauda equina for patients with neurogenic claudication through a 2 cm incision as an outpatient. I did it twice yesterday. Everybody goes home the day of surgery, and most are back to work in less than a week. If he has any instability where the stenosis is, then he would need a fusion at the same time, which would increase his recovery time, but that is a different topic.

It depends on the size and location of the meningioma. Almost all of my meningioma patients go home the morning after surgery with a full head of hair, and are out and about in a day or 2, and back to work in less than a week, depending on how strenuous their work is. You should not have any staples to remove or any head wrap or any bandage, and your incision should be completely hidden by your hair immediately after surgery. There are very few, very limited exceptions to this rule, so without knowing exactly where your meningioma is, and how big it is, I can't tell you if you are one of the exceptions.

I'm not sure how to answer this without talking to him, examining him, and looking at his MRI. There are a lot of things to address here. First, spinal stenosis only needs to be treated if the cauda equina is compressed and you have claudication symptoms. Otherwise, spinal stenosis is irrelevant and does not need to be treated. If your friend has neurologic deficits from nerve compression in the spine, then the treatment for that is to decompress the nerves. I routinely decompress the cauda equina for patients with neurogenic claudication through a 2 cm incision as an outpatient. I did it twice yesterday. Everybody goes home the day of surgery with no stitches to remove and no bandage, and most are back to work in less than a week. If he has any instability where the stenosis is causing movement exacerbated back pain, then he may or may not need a fusion at the same time, which would increase his recovery time, but that is a different topic.

It doesn't matter. All neurosurgeons are trained to work on the spine. Only orthopedic surgeons that did a spine fellowship after residency are qualified to work on the spine. As long as it is a fully trained, board certified spine surgeon, it doesn't matte whether they trained as an orthopedic surgeon or a neurosurgeon. It is much more important to find someone that is fully trained and comfortable doing every minimally invasive and open procedure on the spine to make sure you don't end up having a much more invasive surgery than you need with a much loner recovery period than necessary.

You shouldn't be on bed rest at all after surgery. You should be up walking the day of surgery, or certainly by the next morning. I'm assuming by "benign tumor against you brain" you mean a meningioma. Almost all of my meningioma patients go home the morning after surgery with a full head of hair, and are out and about in a day or 2, and back to work in less than a week, depending on how strenuous their work is. You should not have any staples to remove or any head wrap or any bandage, and your incision should be completely hidden by your hair immediately after surgery. There are very few, very limited exceptions to this rule, so without knowing exactly where your meningioma was, and how big it was, I can't tell you if you are one of the exceptions. Even then, you should not be on bedrest. The more active you are after surgery, the faster you will feel normal again.

There is no normal after brain surgery. Some people have headaches, some don't. If you are concerned, tell your surgeon. But if your surgeon is not concerned, don't be surprised.

It depends on the size and location of the tumor. Almost all of my brain tumor patients go home the morning after surgery with a full head of hair, and are out and about in a day or 2, and back to work in less than a week, depending on how strenuous their work is. He should not have any staples to remove or any head wrap or any bandage, and his incision should be completely hidden by his hair immediately after surgery (If he is not already bald). There are very few, very limited exceptions to this rule, but without knowing exactly where his tumor is, and what kind of tumor it is, and how big it is, I can't tell you if he would be one of the exceptions.