TriStar Centennial first in Tennessee to treat brain tumors with fluorescence-guided surgery

Neurosurgeons at TriStar Centennial Medical Center are the first in Tennessee to use fluorescence-guided surgery on high-grade glioma patients. Gleolan™ is an oral solution patients drink before surgery that “lights up” under blue light filters on a surgical microscope allowing surgeons to see and remove more of the tumor in some cases.

A glioma is a type of brain tumor that accounts for 80 percent of all primary brain tumors. One of the most common treatments for a glioma is surgery, but because the tumors extend into different parts of the brain, surgeons are not able to remove the entire tumor.

“The optical imaging agent shows me areas of the tumor I couldn’t previously see allowing me to remove more cancerous cells than ever before,” said, Dr. Robbi Franklin, a neurosurgeon at TriStar Centennial Medical Center who performed the first surgery in September. “If we can resect more of the tumor, that has been linked to increases in patient survival rates.”

For more information, go to TriStarCentennial.com or call Medline at 615.342.1919.