MRI Series

I have finally got the hang of the MRI discs given to me about a month ago. These pictures are the series of MRI's sent in to the drug company for review and ultimate determination of their drugs effectiveness against glioblastoma tumors a.k.a. the results of poster boy Bryon Gundersen.

I will do my best to explain each photo, but no guarantees you will all be able to see what we see.
These first two pictures are from January 16, 2009 or the day of the second surgery. These are post operation pictures so all you can really see is the hole where the tumor was and the chemo wafers that were placed directly on remaining tumor tissue.(those are the little black lines you can see.)

This second photo I put in just to give you an idea of how deep they had to go to get out as much tumor as possible. It is the darker gray smudge on the right side of the photo the extends from the top of the brain, and goes almost all the way down to the brain stem, or the black spot at the bottom.

In March, we had an MRI to start the drug trial. The chemo wafers have dissolved and done a nice job at keeping the tumor nice and small. All you can see now is the hole where the tumor once was and an area of fluid that fills the void.(that would be the big black spot on the thing that looks like a brain.) All the scans from here down are viewing from the top of Bryon's head.

In May, the MRI showed some growth around the void left from surgery. Tumor cells light up with the contrast material they gave Bryon before the MRI. Any tumor growth you see will be the lighter ring around what used to be just a black space. You can see it is growing almost all the way around the area.

I messed up on this one, but you can see how the tumor had grown a bit between May and July. Again, the tumor is the lighter material you can see in the middle.

OK, so I messed up on September's MRI also, but again you can see what they were looking at. This was the largest the tumor got after surgery in 2009, at 23.4 mm the doctor was beginning to get a little nervous.

November, we held our breath. Not much change in size this time, but it was still borderline. If the tumor had grown much more than this Bryon would have been kicked out of the trial and forced to try other avenues of treatment.

December rolled around and we were preparing for some bad news. To our surprise and relief the tumor had actually shown some reduction. Exact measurements are not available, but what a relief to know we weren't headed for surgery again for the New Year.

February was significant! The radiologist was nice enough to point out where the tumor was on this scan. Obvious reduction and it was really exciting to just about everyone involved. The arrow points to a little dot that looks like a pimple...to me anyway.

So, from this point on I have no more pictures, but there is nothing to see in them anyway. Bryon's MRI's have shown no growth and the doctor feels there is absolutely no mass anymore. It wouldn't be much fun to look at a black hole in someone's brain now would it? Of course the doctor's official opinion is that there is some tumor still there, but he is definitely blown away by the progress made by Bryon and this drug trial. As for the drug company, they have no idea what to do at this point. They have not had anyone with this type of success, therefore they never considered what to do when there was no longer any tumor to treat. A conference is being held to discuss what to do with Bryon, but treatment continues till the experts can figure out what is best.