Q. Why did you choose neurosurgery and what do you like best about it?
A. Neurosurgery is a field that combines the excitement of neuroscience with the ability to effect patient outcome. As a neurosurgeon, I spend a great deal of time thinking about what new developments in basic neurobiology can be used to improve the treatment of patients. This knowledge allows a bridging between the laboratory and the operating room, which is constantly stimulating.
Q. We understand that primary brain tumors do not get a significant amount of funding from national sources, i.e. National Institute of Health. Can you explain why?
A. Actually, gliomas, particularly malignant gliomas, are receiving increasing funding from the NIH. However, benign primary brain tumors, giomas, do not get significant funding because they are not life threatening in the near term. However, they are very common and decision-making about their management is an ongoing issue. They, therefore, require more attention than they now get.
Q. What must happen in order to get additional funding at the national level for primary brain tumors?
A. Additional funding will only come through increased awareness of these tumors and of their difficulties on the part of patients and their families. This then can be used to provide some pressure on funding agencies.
Q. In your opinion, on a national and even international level, what needs to occur in the brain tumor community to improve the understanding of these tumors and eventually reduce their incidence level?
A. I think that the most important steps in understanding brain tumors better are, first, to increase the molecular biology approach to these tumors, and second, to begin to use understandings that can go from the operating theatre to the clinic, the clinic to the basic laboratory, and ultimately, back to the operating theatre. This so called translational research is critically important.
Q. In your medical opinion, with unlimited resources, how long would it take to find a cure for primary brain tumors?
A. This is a very difficult question to answer. I would think that it would depend on what’s being done in other fields besides ours. However, it is liable to be at least a generation before we really find cures. It is likely to happen in small steps made by many investigators.
