A bright pink glow showed the precise pathway a glioma took to
spread through the brain TUESDAY, Feb. 19 (HealthDay News) --
Neurosurgeons report that they harnessed the power of
fluorescent light to illuminate a brain tumor so the entire
growth could be removed. A report describes a case in which a
patient with glioblastoma swallowed a pill, called 5-ALA, and
was taken to surgery about four hours later. The medication
attached itself to tumor cells, causing them to glow brightly.
Once the skull was opened, the doctors focused a blue light on
the tumor, which gave the cancerous cells a pink glow, so the
surgeons could differentiate malignant tissue from healthy
tissue. "This is a very, very good thing," said study author
Mitchel Berger, chairman of neurosurgery at the University of
California, San Francisco. "In this case, we just happened to
notice we could see evidence of the tumor spreading along the
way of the ventricles [a communicating network of brain
cavities], which showed we could see tumor dissemin