Benign or malignant conditions
Date issued: December 2024
For review: December 2026
Ref: A-671/HL/Learning Disability Team/Benign or malignant conditions
PDF: Benign or malignant conditions.pdf [pdf] 424KB
Introduction
This information is for people who are think about having Stereotactic Radiotherapy.
This information should help answer any questions you might have about your treatment.
If you still have questions after reading this information you can talk to your doctor or nurse.
What is Stereotactic Radiotherapy?
Stereotactic Radiotherapy is a way of treating way of treating small tumours with radiation.
A tumour is an abnormality seen on pictures of your brain that needs treatment.
Your head will be placed in a special mask, this means that the radiation can be shaped around your tumour.
The radiation can be controlled as machine move around your head to protect healthy brain tissue.
How does the radiotherapy work?
Radiotherapy uses high energy x-rays to treat cancer. It can be used on many types of cancer.
Radiotherapy works by damaging the cells that cause the tumour to grow.
There are two types of tumours that radiotherapy helps to treat:
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Benign is a non-cancerous growth.
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Malignant is a growth that has harmful, cancerous cells which may harm healthy tissue in your body.
If you have a benign tumour, the radiotherapy may help to shrink the tumour and stop it growing.
It is normal for the tumour to grow a little bit more for the first few months.
If you have a malignant tumour the radiotherapy will try and make your tumour smaller.
After you have had radiotherapy, you might need to have scans to monitor your tumour.
Treatment Planning
Your case will be discussed in a meeting with different professionals to agree a treatment plan.
You will be told about the outcome of this meeting by letter or a phone call.
