Expert: Claes-Gustaf Nordquist, M.D. - 9/9/2008

Question
hi my 63 year old mother was diagnosed in june with cancer of the middle ear which was going to involve a 10 hour operation,however when the marker scans for the op were taken they discovered that the tumour was situated next
to the main artery and was heading for the brain so it was therefore inoperable.she has now been offered radiotherapy and chemotherapy alongside this ,as she is otherwise healthy the oncologist is going to treat her with the maximum dose for a 7 week period but that will be all that they can do.what do you think of this treatment and are there any drugs available to buy that would help to reduce or shrink this tumour.we were told that it is a large tumour and when first diagnosed in june the surgeon informed us that mum would only have weeks or months to live.this has come as such a shock to us all as mum has never suffered with her ears at all and has always been a non smoker and a non drinker throughout her life.the tumour is in her right ear and is affecting the whole right side of her face,throat,jaw and neck and she is also finding it difficult to open her mouth.can you please advise us about anything else we can try or buy that may help.she is due to start a trial of her treatment in just over a week.i have heard of a treatment called cyberknife that i understand is available in america and sounds promising for inoperable tumours do you have any info about this at all.many thanks i would be extremely grateful for a reply.thankyou michelle.

Answer
Honestly I think she should accept the radiation therapy & chemotherapy since they are the only chance she has got. It may not be enough but that is all that can be done. Stereotactic radiation therapy (CyberKnife or GammaKnife or proton beams depending on what is available) is a possibility BUT is ONLY useful for rather small tumors (up to 4 cm in size roughly 1.5 inch) and since this is a cancer so a malignant tumor a wider margin is necessary so I would hardly recommend treatment of anything larger than one inch (2.54 cm) in such a case. Apart from these things there is unfortunately nothing that can be done unfortunately. I'm sorry I have nothing better to tell you!