Glioma

Treatment

Treatment of gliomas involves a multispecialty team effort at Mayo Clinic. A neurologist with expertise in brain cancers (neuro-oncologist) usually serves as the team lead. Brain tumor treatment team specialists work together to provide the integrated model of care for which Mayo Clinic is known. The neuro-oncologist helps coordinate your overall care with specialists from neurosurgery, medical oncology, radiation oncology, neuropathology, neuroradiology and brain rehabilitation, if needed.

Glioma treatment options include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, medications and experimental therapies. Your Mayo Clinic team partners with you and your family to create a treatment plan appropriate for your needs. Specialists can work with your local doctor to coordinate your care close to home if you live a long distance away. They also pay particular attention to your quality of life as they treat glioma.

Surgery

Mayo Clinic neurosurgeons have significant expertise and experience in performing traditional and advanced glioma tumor removal surgeries. When possible, you generally can be scheduled for surgery quickly at Mayo Clinic. Clinical trials of new potential treatment advances such as PET-scan guided and fluorescence-guided surgeries that minimize damage to surrounding healthy tissue also are available.

One of Mayo Clinic's strengths is the ability of neuropathologists (specialists in examining brain tissue) to rapidly analyze tissue samples removed in surgery and report results almost instantly to surgeons. This helps surgeons make real-time, informed decisions about the amount of tissue to remove, so they can preserve as much surrounding healthy brain tissue as possible.

Mayo Clinic offers the latest surgical options, technologies and techniques, including:

• Computer-assisted neurosurgery
• Traditional tumor removal surgery
• Awake brain surgery and functional brain mapping
• Intraoperative MRI
  

Radiation therapy

Gamma Knife
Machine™

Radiation therapy is an essential part of treatment for many people with gliomas. It can prolong survival for most people and provide a cure for some individuals. Mayo Clinic radiation oncologists are experienced in the full spectrum of radiation treatments. Radiation treatment options for gliomas include:

• Fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy (FSR). This traditional form of radiation therapy delivers radiation in small doses (fractions).
• External beam radiation. This radiation therapy type delivers radiation from outside of the body and includes 3-D conformal (radiation beams shaped to match the tumor's form) techniques.
• Stereotactic radiosurgery (Gamma Knife). Stereotactic radiosurgery is effective for only select types of gliomas, such as meningioma, or small tumors confined to a limited area.

Drug therapy

• Chemotherapy. Chemotherapy may be combined with radiation therapy or other treatments. Mayo Clinic is a research leader in treating brain tumors with chemotherapy, and Mayo Clinic patients may be eligible to participate in chemotherapy clinical trials that are appropriate for their situation.

Experimental treatments

Some Mayo Clinic patients under regular treatment also may choose to receive experimental therapies. Your treatment team can help determine if you qualify as a clinical trial participant for the following treatments, as well as others.

• Vaccine and viral therapies. These treatment approaches include altering the immune system to attempt to control the glioma with vaccines, infusion of immune cells into the body and the use of modified viruses to attack the tumor.
• Molecular targeted therapy. Advances in understanding how brain tumors grow and progress at the cell level led to the development of new drugs that target certain molecules, blocking or interfering with the growth and spread of tumors.

Read more about brain tumor treatment at MayoClinic.com.