CINCINNATI (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) — Radiation is often used to treat patients with brain tumors. But many times, the radiation treatments leave behind damaged brain tissue. Now, researchers may have found a way to stop and even reverse that problem.
Dave Clark doesn’t need a video store. He catches a movie every weekday at the hospital. Clark spends five days a week, 130 minutes a day, in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to treat brain injury after radiation. He’s had two brain tumors removed in the last four years.
Laurie Beth Gesell, M.D., a hyperbaric medicine expert at University Hospital in Cincinnati, says the damaged brain tissue leads to a variety of problems. “They might have numbness. They might have thinking problems. They might have speaking problems. They might have things as generalized as just severe headaches.”.
