“Gamma Knife surgery, effective in suppressing tumors in 92% of patients with rare brain tumors.”

Professor Kim Young-hoon’s team at Asan Medical Center conducted a 53-month follow-up analysis of 60 patients after surgery.

input 2024.11.04 14:28

input 2024.11.04 14:28
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Kim Young-hoon, professor of neurosurgery at Asan Medical Center in Seoul. Photo = Seoul Asan Hospital

Gamma knife surgery, a treatment method that irradiates gamma rays, a high-energy electromagnetic wave, without opening the head of a patient with a rare brain tumor, has been confirmed to have a tumor suppressing effect.

Kim Young-hoon, a professor of neurosurgery at Asan Medical Center in Seoul, observed 60 patients who underwent gamma knife surgery for lower brain schwannoma for about 53 months and found that tumor suppression effects were observed in about 92% (55 patients) of the patients.

Lower cranial schwannomas are benign tumors that occur in the cranial nerves located at the bottom of the skull and are responsible for functions such as swallowing and speech. Symptoms include severe difficulty swallowing, speech impairment, and motor ataxia.

Surgery is the fundamental treatment for brain tumors, but recently, gamma knife surgery is performed unless surgery is absolutely necessary.

Gamma knife surgery, also called ‘bloodless surgery’, is a method of treating brain diseases such as brain tumors and cerebrovascular malformations by intensively irradiating high-energy gamma rays to the lesion without cutting the head. Gamma knife surgery is used in situations where surgery is difficult depending on the lesion characteristics or patient condition.

Professor Kim’s team analyzed the results of follow-up observations for an average of 52.8 months on 60 patients who underwent gamma knife surgery at Seoul Asan Medical Center for lower brain schwannoma between February 1994 and December 2021.

At the final follow-up after Gamma Knife surgery, tumor growth was suppressed in 55 out of 60 patients (approximately 91.6%), showing a therapeutic effect.

Among 60 patients with lower brain schwannoma, 47 patients had jugular foramen schwannoma and 13 patients had subglossal nerve schwannoma. The rate of tumor suppression effect for each specific disease was approximately 91.5% (43 out of 47 patients) and 92.3% (12 out of 13 patients), respectively.

The 1-, 2-, and 3-year disease-free survival rates after gamma knife surgery for all 60 patients with lower brain schwannoma were 96.5%, 91.5%, and 89.0%, respectively.

After an average follow-up period of 53 months, the results of analyzing neurological symptoms due to treatment of lower brain schwannoma, such as severe dysphagia, motor ataxia, hearing impairment, and facial paralysis, showed that 30 out of 60 patients improved and 20 were stable. Seven people temporarily worsened, but recovered well without major problems, and only three showed worsening neurological symptoms.

Professor Kim said, “Gamma knife surgery has been performed in cases where surgery is difficult to treat lower brain schwannoma, which has a low incidence among brain tumors and for which there have been no long-term treatment studies, but it is significant that the long-term treatment effect has been proven as a result of the study.”

The results of this study were published in the Journal of Neurosurgery.

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