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In August of 1998, the Brain Radionecrosis Center (BRC) began using
hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat patients with brain radionecrosis.
Data was collected data on 39 of our patients to show what benefits
hyperbaric oxygen therapy might have.
Patients were referred to the BRC by doctors specializing in brain tumors,
radiation therapy, and neurosurgery. All patients treated were getting
worse when they first came to the BRC, and most of them were taking very
high doses of steroids which were not working well.
Two patients did not complete the first 20 hyperbaric treatments;
one patient decided not to continue treatment, and the other's
brain tumor started to get bigger.
On the other hand, among patients who did complete their hyperbaric oxygen therapy,
the brain radionecrosis got worse for only one individual. Eight patients
showed growth of their tumors, and one patient had another brain disease that
wasn't cased by the brain radionecrosis or tumor. The BRC success rate was about 90%.
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The BRC conducted a total of 1,744 treatments on these 39 patients.
There were no serious side effects of treatments. There were some
minor side effects in one out of every two hundred treatments. These
minor side effects were no different from the symptoms that people
with brain radionecrosis often have.
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Use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, using the protocol designed at the BRC,
appears to be safe and effective for the brain radionecrosis patient.
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