Baylor All Saints Medical Center at Fort Worth Performs Skull Base Surgery

Contact: Mary Johnson, 817-922-7088 or Sunny Drenik, 817-922-7100
Email: Maryjohn@baylorhealth.edu or Sunnydr@baylorhealth.edu

(FORT WORTH, Texas, December 28, 2006) - Baylor All Saints Medical Center at Fort Worth is committed to providing treatment options to patients with brain tumors. One of these options, skull base surgery, treats mainly complex tumors along the skull base.

Several neurosurgeons on the medical staff at Baylor All Saints have extensive experience performing this complex procedure. The process is very tedious because these tumors often involve arteries and nerves and can be difficult to remove. Some of the surgical treatments include focused skull base approach, brain tumors, key hole craniotomy, endoscopic assisted microneurosurgery and endoscopic resection of brain lesions.

"Our goal is to control the disease process with maximal preservation of function," said Linda Schickedanz, RN, MSN, CNS, Executive Director, Oncology Program at Baylor All Saints Medical Center at Fort Worth. "We provide advanced, compassionate treatment for patients with skull base lesions, using the most appropriate combination of minimally invasive surgery techniques and/or Gamma Knife^®* radiation therapy. Patients with skull base tumors exhibit few symptoms until the tumor has reached a size large enough to affect neurologic function."

Symptoms such as facial pain or numbness, loss of vision, hearing loss and cognitive changes are some of the symptoms that could indicate a skull base tumor. In the past, surgeries involved the surgeon moving a patient's brain out of the way in order to remove the tumor; causing possible injury to normal brain tissue. Skull base surgery allows resection of these lesions with minimal brain tissue manipulation.

"The ability to remove skull base lesions gives our patients, especially those with brain tumors, another tool to fight cancer," said Schickedanz. For more information regarding skull base surgery, contact 1-800-4BAYLOR.

The not-for-profit Baylor All Saints Medical Centers serve more than 100,000 people annually through two hospitals, numerous primary care physician centers and practices, a rehabilitation and fitness center, and a variety of medical specialties. Programs of excellence in cardiology, transplantation, neurosciences, oncology and women's services form the heart of the hospitals' services. All Saints joined Baylor Health Care System in January 2002. All Saints Health Foundation, a separately incorporated not-for-profit organization, raises and manages charitable funds to support Baylor All Saints Medical Centers. For fiscal year 2005, Baylor Health Care System reported $314 million in community benefit to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Physicians are members of the medical staff at one of Baylor Health Care System's subsidiary, community or affiliated medical centers and are neither employees nor agents of those medical centers, Baylor All Saints Medical Center or Baylor Health Care System.

*Gamma Knife is owned by and leased from an affiliate of HEALTHSOUTH and is a service of Baylor All Saints Medical Center. The Gamma Knife is not a joint venture of HEALTHSOUTH and Baylor All Saints Medical Center. The physicians providing Gamma Knife services are independent physicians.