Nurse Practitioner Survives a Brain Tumor

Happy and healthy

Jannie Gilbert (center) with daughter Cathryn and son Timothee.

Jannie Gilbert was shocked the first time she learned she had a benign brain tumor that eventually required surgery. Then the tumor returned and Gilbert was told her chances of surviving a second round of surgery—or surviving without complications— was not as favorable. She faced a difficult choice: have high-risk surgery in Washington, D.C., or go to Philadelphia for a new low-dose radiation treatment called stereotactic radiotherapy.

Gilbert, an internal medicine nurse practitioner for the practice of Candio-Kovacs-Lakata, decided against either option. “I wanted to be cared for by doctors I trust here at home,” she says.

She chose to wait until this new stereotactic technology came to the Lehigh Valley. Her wait ended in 1998 when stereotactic radiotherapy came to Lehigh Valley Hospital. The then 45-year-old mother endured 35 radiation sessions over seven weeks with a favorable outcome.

“The technology and care at LVHHN was a blessing,” Gilbert says. “I needed to continue to work and be here with my children, so going to Philadelphia every day would have been impossible.”

Today, even more people—and now children—will benefit from more advanced stereotactic technology that allows doctors to treat not only brain tumors, but other parts of the body. The Leonard Pool Society, LVHHN’s annual giving society, has contributed $135,000 that will bring new software and hardware to complement care at the John and Dorothy Morgan Cancer Center and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Specialty Care Center of the Lehigh Valley at LVH-Muhlenberg.

Stereotactic radiosurgery provides high-dose, single-fraction radiation treatment of many tumors that were once untreatable. Sophisticated computer mapping arcs a radiation beam to treat a specific area while sparing nearby tissue. It is ideal for adults and children who need very focused, lower-dose radiation, including those with pituitary tumors, brain lesions and tumors close to the optic nerve.

“We now have two pediatric oncologists who work closely with The Children’s Hospital, and we have a lot of demand for this type of treatment with children,” says radiation oncologist Clinton Leinweber, D.O., director of the hospital’s stereotactic program. “This is the first time children will be able to receive this treatment in the Lehigh Valley.”

And Gilbert calls that a “godsend.” “This will make a world of difference for the children of the Lehigh Valley and their families— just like it did for me.”

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