Blog Articles

Immunotherapy is an exciting field of cancer treatment that uses new medications to fight cancer by boosting your own immune system. Read on to learn how immunotherapy offers hope for battling — and overcoming — brain cancer.

The steps needed to help you recover from surgery actually start as soon as you are diagnosed and not just after you wake in the hospital bed. Prior to surgery you should read as much as you can about what to expect during and after your surgery.

What is Deep Brain Stimulation and how can it improve quality of life for those with Parkinson’s Disease?

Have you ever left the mechanic feeling like you had no idea what was even fixed? Or paid for IT support, only to find yourself uneasy about the recommended updates or purchases your technician had offered.

In the latter half of 2015, Dr. Chris Duma was featured on CBS News – Los Angeles when the station featured a couple – Cindy and Mark – two of Dr. Duma’s glioblastoma patients.

The first stop for post-surgery expectations is your surgical team. Your experience will vary greatly based on your health history, your diagnosis, your anesthesia and your surgery.

The term endoscopy comes from endoscope, which is a flexible tube with a light and camera attached to it, typically used in gastrointestinal surgeries, and allows surgeons to view key anatomical features in real-time during surgery.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease, with about 1 in every 1,000 people developing (PD) in their lifetime.

Patients who have recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor will quickly discover that there are many different treatment options available for removing or shrinking tumors. Many of our patients wonder what is the best treatment option for them?

Being diagnosed with a brain tumor is often very stressful and overwhelming. A large contributor to the anxiety one feels is the fear associated with the unknown, but the unknown can be mitigated with the help of the right neurologist.

Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is considered the most painful neurological disease because it causes unrelenting head and facial pain in those who suffer from it – often being described as an intense burning or stabbing pain.

Gamma knife surgery is an important alternative treatment option for conventional brain surgery.

Our genes can be understood as our molecular heredity – the biological attributes that are passed to us from many generations before us. For decades, medical researchers have been trying to find the link, if any, between our genetics and brain disease.

Unfortunately, no one is immune from unpredictable brain tumors. Most genetic, biological factors are still somewhat ambiguous and often there is no cause for the development of a tumor.

Between 2007-2010 over $1.2 billion dollars were spent in the United States for neuroimaging related to headaches and migraines.

Hindsight is always 20/20 but when it comes to seeing a neurologist, foresight is vital. Time spent with the right neurologist can be the difference between relief and worry, prevention and treatment, and life and death.

Astronomer Carl Sagan once said, “Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” Unfortunately, for most people – including doctors – how we think about things affects what we know to be true and how we solve problems.

Music is a powerful phenomena, capable of changing emotions, thoughts and behaviors. It’s rare to find somebody on this planet that doesn’t respond to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, move to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, or tear to Debussy’s Claire de Lune.

At its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, poliomyelitis (also known as polio) would kill or paralyze 500,000 people every year.

The vast increase of neurological disorders is troubling. Hundreds of millions of people around the globe are burdened with neurological disorders, and this doesn’t take into account the masses of undiagnosed in rural and developing areas.

A glioblastoma (GBM) is a highly malignant tumor that forms from star-shaped cells called astrocytes that are responsible for forming supportive tissue in the brain.

Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH), commonly known as “water on the brain,” is rare, affecting about 5 in 100,000 persons; however, for those suffering from NPH, quality-of-life can be drastically reduced.

Even though the concept of virtual reality and robotics sounds more like something you’d read about in a Ray Bradbury or Orson Scott Card novel, this innovative technology is changing the approach neurosurgeons are taking to treat patients.

According to a recent study, almost 700,000 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with a brain tumor. If those numbers are correct, than that means 1 in 448 people are currently living with a malignant or benign brain tumor.

Have you ever woken yourself from a dream by shouting or jumping out of bed? While uncommon, you’re not alone. Sleep talking (somniloquy) is most common in children and males, although women can sleep talk, too.

Headaches can be caused by a number of things, and the majority of time can be linked to non-serious sources like pulled or tensed muscles, sinus infections, or blood vessel swelling (like a migraine).

If your doctor recently recommended gamma knife radiosurgery for the treatment of brain tumors (malignant and benign), vascular malformations, or functional brain disorders you may be wondering what gamma knife radiosurgery actually is.

In 2013 around 70,000 American’s were diagnosed with a new brain tumor, and of them, 25,000 were malignant. There are multiple forms of treatment available, however, immunotherapy is considered one of the best treatment options for fighting brain tumors.

You’ve probably been seeing the popular NCAA Basketball championship all over the media.

According to recent statistics, nearly one in five American’s will have a stroke in his or her lifetime. Though strokes can effect anyone at any age, typically those who experience a stroke do so during their middle age or older years.

Surely you’ve seen the countless commercial products advertising brain training.

We’re still relatively new in this 2014 year and there is still time to catch the coat tails of all those resolutions you set. In reality, however, the concept of the brain’s involvement in resolutions (and their perceived value) is quite fascinating.

It’s not uncommon for Hollywood to use the most extreme illnesses and rare occurrences in their plots for dramatic effect.

Surprisingly, symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been described in writings as early as 2000 B.C. Sources such as Egyptian papyrus, an Ayurvedic medical summary, and Galen’s writings all describe manifestations of PD.

This month, as you’re finding reasons to give thanks, perhaps you may want to include an extra dose of gratitude and support for all those who courageously face Alzheimer’s disease (AD) with strength and optimism.

With the growing rates of dementia and memory loss worldwide, researchers have been focused on finding the causes of memory impairments.

According the International OCD Foundation, about 1 in every 100 adults is currently affected by Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), while 1 in 200 children and teens may have OCD as well.

If someone could offer you a fix that could help you improve your brain health, increase memory, cut your risk of developing Alzheimers or dementia, prevent stroke, or improve symptoms from Parkinson’s Disease, would you take it?

While brain exercises like Sudoku, crossword puzzles, and learning new languages are all helpful in keeping the brain elastic, there are many health practices that play a vital rule in how your brain ages over the years.

According to ancient Egyptian writings, Ayurvedic sources, and records from the Roman physician and surgeon Galen, Parkinson’s Disease, or an illness that replicates it, has been around since man has been able to record it.

Gamma knife and CyberKnife™ are some of the most sophisticated technologies available to contemporary medicine. It’s interesting that despite their name, there is no actual knife involved.

Brain surgery has been known to humanity for at least 3500 years, going back to ancient civilizations in Europe, Africa and South America. Over the past 30 years open surgical craniotomies have been the most common practice for most brain surgeons.

When considering brain tumors, it is important to understand that not all are malignant.

Dr. Christopher Duma will be presenting at the 16th Annual Leksell Gamma Knife Society Meeting – March 25th- 29th in Sydney Australia.

One of Dr. Duma’s patients, Allison Smith-Conway, recently published a book and it is now available on Amazon for Kindles!

Welcome to Dr. Duma’s new blog! We are excited about launching our new website, and utilizing technology to help better educate and communicate with our current and future patients.

One of my patients is publishing a book describing her experience with her young onset Parkinson’s disease as well as her battle with colon cancer.

I am honored to be the principal investigator for a brain tumor vaccine trial at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach.