Be sure to get a radiation oncologist's, or a surgeon who also uses radiosurgery's opinions also. Any surgeon who does not also treat with radiosurgery WILL recommend surgery, it's how they make their money, so if they think you're healthy enough to survive brain surgery, they will strongly recommend it. On the other hand, a radiation oncologist who only treats with radiosurgery, WILL recommend radiosurgery, unless there is brain stem compression or symptoms so severe they can only be alleviated by removing the growth (I prefer growth now to tumor, the word tumor makes one think of cancer automatically when I tell my friends I have a tumor, they freak out, and these growths are not cancer, just a spontaneous abnormal growth of schwann cells, kind of like a wart as my radiation oncologist says). Just remember, all doctors will push their trade, and unfortunately, it seems many use scare tactics to make a patient feel they are in immediate danger, and only that doctor can save them. Keep in mind radosurgery stops the tumor from growing, and usually after time it shrinks, but the key is it stops growing and can do no more harm, there is no incision or recovery time. Surgery removes it, but not always completely, so it can grow back again, and there is alot of recovery involoved and many possible complications, long and short term. As a personal view, I can't understand why anybody would choose surgery for a growth within radiosurgery size range and not causing compression, sure the growth is not taken out, but it's not an alien, it's your own cells, the same cells that cover all your nerves, just a greater accumulation of them on one nerve. Neither treatment is 100%, but both are pretty close, and share similar long term control rates, so why have your skull opened and endure pain to remove something you don't know is there?
