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Local News - updated 6:15 PM ET Jan 4	Add to My Yahoo!
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Thursday January 04 06:00 PM EST "Innovative Brain Surgery Gives Patients Hope For The Future" Innovative Brain Surgery Gives Patients Hope For The Future Patients Are Awake During Procedure The idea of being awake and lucid while doctors remove a tumor from the brain may amaze some and worry others, but a new life-saving procedure is giving hope to people suffering from brain cancer. • Get The Latest Weather • Sign Up For Daily News Flashes • Election 2000: Read All About It • 10 Easy Steps To Buying A Car Annie Lockhart was one of the first brain tumor patients to undergo the surgery, and she admits that she was rattled by the thought of the surgery. Lockhart said that she was ready to try anything to save her life. "At first it kind of blew me away, you know to think that I had something like that," Lockhart said. "But then it didn't blow me away like it does some people because I'm expecting a miracle with my doctors and God." The miracle cure Lockhart and other patients hope for involves placing special wafers into the brain, after the tumor has been removed. Dr. Nick Avgeropoulous explained how the procedure works. "You have these dime size wafers that you put in during surgery, you line the tumor bed and the bcnu (a Food and Drug Administration approved chemotherapy agent) that's impregnating these dime size wafers that then soaks in, over the course of three weeks," Dr. Avgeropoulous said. The FDA approved the procedure in patients where a tumor has recurred following surgery. Lockhart is a part of a clinical test that is testing the efficacy of the wafer treatment. Lockhart followed her groundbreaking surgery with traditional radiation as well as, gamma knife radiation surgery. The new procedure shrinks the chance of tumors to a one-in-20 chance, Dr. Avgeropoulous said. "These new therapies are being pushed to the limit and each day, not each year, each day there's something new that's discovered here," Dr. Avgeropoulous said. "It's only going to be a matter of time before this is cured. Click here for more brain tumor treatment information. Email this story - View most popular  |  Printer-friendly format Archived Stories by Date: Jan 03 Jan 02 Jan 01 Dec 31 Dec 29 Dec 28 Dec 27 Dec 26 Dec 25 Dec 24 Dec 22 Dec 21 Dec 20 Dec 19 Dec 18 Dec 17 Dec 16 Dec 15 Dec 14 Dec 13 Dec 12 Dec 11 Dec 10 Dec 08 Dec 07 Dec 06 Dec 05 News Resources Message Boards: Post and read messages about this story Requires a Yahoo! ID to post messages. Conversations: Start a live discussion Requires Yahoo! Messenger Click HERE to return to brain tumor news headlines