A father-of-two has said he 'feels great' after having 98 cancerous tumors removed from his brain.
Leland Fay, a 46-year-old from Monument, Colorado, told CBS Denver that it's been six years since he was given the first cancer diagnosis, and he feels 'Great, you know, normal. Whatever normal is.'
Fay was diagnosed with aggressive melanoma in 2011 after feeling a bump on his scalp.
The cancer metastasized, causing he had 98 tumors on his brain, of which 97 were eventually removed using stereotactic radiosurgery, a type of radiation that directly targets brain tumors. Only one had to be removed surgically.
Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer and can appear anywhere on the body. It often spreads to other organs in the body, and when that happens, is significantly harder to treat. After the original melanoma diagnosis, he had that part of his scalp removed, as well as the lymph nodes in his neck in an attempt to keep the disease from spreading.
He then underwent an undisclosed experimental treatment in California in an attempt to kill any remaining cancerous cells on his body.
The experimental treatment failed, and in 2012 he was told the cancer had spread to his stomach, liver and lungs. Two months after that news, he found out the cancer had spread to his brain.There were a total of 98 tumors growing in and on Fay's brain. His doctors told him that some people will be sent to hospice with as few as three, he recalled in an interview with CBS.
At first, his oncologist said it looked bleak: he had six weeks to live.
Days later, he met neurosurgeon Dr Robert Breeze at the University of Colorado Hospital to try unconventional methods in a last-ditch attempt to stay alive.
Dr Breeze first used stereotactic radiosurgery, a noninvasive treatment for malignant and benign brain tumors among other things.
Fay was transferred to Rocky Mountain Gamma Knife Center later that year, where he began Gamma Knife radiation treatment.
The treatment works similar to traditional radiation, but is significantly stronger and more precise.
It delivers 192 precisely focused beams of the gamma radiation to a single point to kill the diseased tissue, sparing nearby healthy tissue, according to University of Arkansas for Medical Science.
He underwent seven-hour-long treatments, to remove 97 of the tumors, and the 98th was removed surgically.
The treatment has many benefits, primarily in that it is bloodless and virtually painless. It also has excellent outcomes for a variety of brain diseases.
Though these treatments are often done in one siting, because Fay had 98 individual tumors that had to be targeted individually, it was a lengthy process for him.
