At Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, rare tumors of the brain, spine and peripheral nerves are treated with uncommon expertise.
Andrew Fabiano, MD, MBA, FAANS, Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, Director of the Neuro-Oncology Program and Director of the Spinal Oncology Center, says his team deals exclusively with cancer-related tumors that are difficult to treat.
“Rare tumors that might present to outside surgeons, for us, those are common,” he says. “Common doesn’t mean easy, but we do put a tremendous amount of effort, and we have a tremendous amount of experience, into treating rare cancers.”
Learn why Roswell Park is a leader in neurosurgery and how they continue to advance cancer care.
Hello, my name's Doctor Andrew Fabiano, and I'm the chair of neurosurgery and the director of neuro-oncology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. I'm really proud of the care that we provide to our patients, and we specialize in treating patients with brain tumors, spine tumors. And peripheral nerve tumors and in our set up in a national comprehensive Cancer Network cancer center we're able to take the extra time to devote to these patients for every patient that comes in they're going to get a multidisciplinary evaluation and recommendation for what we believe is the best treatment for them when patients go to surgery for us it's like. Launching a space shuttle or winning a Super Bowl, these type of intricate operations really requires a whole team. And we have a team in the hospital under one roof dedicated to making these surgeries go well as well as making sure our patients get the best outcomes. We track all our outcomes. We're part of NSQuip, which is an outcomes database used by top centers around the country, and I'm pleased to share that our surgical outcomes are on par with the top centers around the country, being from Buffalo. I'm really proud that we're able to deliver to the people of Western New York top level cancer care so that they don't need to leave the region to get the best care when cancer strikes them. Cancer really is a specialized area and at Roswell we specialize in that area. Our medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, even our neuropathologists all specialize in treating cancer. This allows patients to have the right treatment recommended and when that treatment recommendation is to go to surgery, they're going to have a neurosurgeon who deals exclusively with cancer the rare tumors that might present to outside surgeons for us, those are common. Common doesn't mean it's easy, but we do put a tremendous amount of effort and have a tremendous amount of experience treating rare cancers, and that's what makes Roswell special. We treat a wide variety of brain spine, and peripheral nerve tumors, and we only treat tumors that allows us to intensely focus on every patient we meet to ensure that they're getting the best treatment. It also allows us to have built over time surgical expertise on rare and challenging tumors. We do receive a lot of patient referrals with challenging cases. The advantage at Roswell is we have a tumor board to initially review these cases and get a treatment recommendation from a team of experts. We can then talk to the patient to deliver to them their options and help them select the treatment that's best for their particular situation. We like to work with the patient's medical oncologist or physician near their home. We're happy to just provide a recommendation or in some instances give a second opinion to reassure the patient that they're getting the right treatment and even that reassurance can mean a lot to a patient. Our goal is to do what's best for our patients, and we really dedicate ourselves each day to giving them the best treatment for their brain, spine, or peripheral nerve tumor. If there's ever a patient that you would like to refer to us here at Roswell Park, please reach out to our team. We're here to help.
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