I've heard of a case where the surgeon told a pacient with multiple recurrent meningiomas that if the tumours continue to re-grow they would have to remove the whole dura matter.
Is this surgically possible? Can a person live without the dura? Would such a person be able to live a normal life?
Is the dura the part of the meninges where meningioma cells originate? I think that a person would be able to live that way, although I expect it would leave them more vulnerable to brain injury, particularly from blunt force trauma. It would definitely beat dying of cancer, though. I'm not sure if it's surgically possible, but I assume that if a surgeon was discussing it as an option then it probably is.
I assume that for this particular patient, the meninioma cells originated from the dura mater, although since cancer cells can originate from basically any cell in the body there are most likely patients for whom menigioma cells originate from the arachnoid mater or pia mater.
P.S. It's dura mater, with only one "t" :) |
