Expert: Claes-Gustaf Nordquist, M.D. - 9/14/2009

Question
My mother has not felt well for a few months now- she has headaches, nausea,confusion and poor balance.  I took her for a CT scan and a hyperdense mass showed in her right posterior fossa.  It has a large feeding vessel and is in close proximity to the tentorium.  There is a large amount of vasogenic edema and some compression of the fourth ventricle.  She has been given steroid pills to help with the edema and we are waiting to see an oncologist.  Her predicament is further complicated by the fact that she has severe COPD.  She also had a malignant tumor removed from her right breast in december.  Situated behind this tumor was also something that showed hot on the PET scan in her lung- the thoracic surgeon recommended we don't do a biopsy on it as her lung could collapse and he thought it was probably cancerous as well.  She has had these headaches for about three months.  I realize she's in a lot of trouble and won't recover.  Will radiation therapy ease her symptoms?  Could you take an educated guess at what kind of time she may have left?  Is there anything I can do to help her?  Thanks so much for your time.  I appreciate it tremendously.

Answer
Yes radiation therapy probably will ease her symptoms. If her brain tumor is secondary to her other malignancies she probably has only months to live maybe even much shorter. If it is a primary brain tumor she may live longer but how much is at present impossible to say. Her prognosis is bad anyway unfortunately. An MRI brain scan should be made in order to better evaluate her brain lesion.