6th Annual Brain Tumor Conference:

We spent all day Friday and Saturday (3/31,4/1) at the 6th Annual Brain Tumor Conference at UCLA. It was a great event that filled us with knowledge and solidified our choice to work with the program at UCLA. We also got to meet several other survivors, families and medical professionals. What will come next is A LOT of information. I took notes on everything in case anyone wanted to know what we heard.

Here's just some of the intro information we learned:

In the end, we don't have the answer. We try to educate the best we can and you will help us to make right decisions.

Here's the outline of what was covered:

UCLA's Approach to Brain Tumor Care: Multidisciplinary
Surgery (maximal surgical resection , functional mapping, operative mapping, navigational surgery, operative MRI, utilize tissue)
Pathology (determination of grade, determination of molecular pathway activation)
Radiation therapy (Novalis shaped beam therapy, conformal therapy, experimental), chemo/biologic (individualized care, experimental-NABTC,ABC2,Investigator initiated)
Immunotherapy(dendritic cell therapy, Poly ICLC, IL13)
Radiology (tumor vs. necrosis , MRI, diffusion, MRS, pet ,fdg, flt, dopa), Fatigue (provigil)
Comprehensive care (principal care, psychosocial, education/updates, caregiver support, social work)
www.neurooncology.com

Interesting facts learned:
Turtles are the only creature that is known to not get cancer. Some cultures use ground up turtle in their treatments.

Here's a way to donate directly to the UCLA Neuro oncology department: www.jeanniescure.org