Can Nerve Sheath Tumor Go Away On Its Own?

Can Nerve Sheath Tumor Go Away On Its Own?

Nerve sheath tumors do not go away on their own. If your doctor diagnose you with the problem of benign sheath tumor, your doctor and you have to decide whether you should undergo with the necessary treatment or it cures automatically. Even though this is a complicated decision, collecting detailed information about your present condition and available treatment procedures (especially surgery) gives you enough confidence and helps your doctor to come up with the right decision.

Understanding Benign Nerve Sheath Tumor and Human Brain

To understand benign nerve sheath tumor, it is essential for understanding a few of the basic anatomies related to the nervous system, which incorporates the human brain, the spinal cord and about billions of cells i.e. neurons. Neurons stay connected with one another by the help of fibers covered within myelin i.e. nerve sheath. If we talk about any healthy cell, myelin helps in proper communication and safeguards myelin from causing any damage. However, in few cases, cells responsible to produce myelin grow in an abnormal way and form tumors, which rest on connective fibers.

Probable Causes Nerve Sheath Tumors

Nerve sheath tumors often grow directly from nerves and they develop in a random way. However, in some cases, it takes place due to syndrome or a health condition. Especially, neurofibromatosis is a health condition that causes both type 1 and type 2 type of nerve tumors.

Treatment (Surgery) is Essential to Avoid Severe Symptoms

Even though a few nerve sheath tumors are of malignant or aggressive i.e. cancerous, most of them are noncancerous or benign. Accordingly, benign ones grow slowly and do not always pose any immediate threat to one’s health. However, they may cause symptoms, which most of the patients find as upsetting and in case left in untreated condition, they result in many severe neurological symptoms, like loss of balance, weakness and numbness. Moreover, an individual may experience other symptoms, like functional loss, numbness and pain in their affected areas. Hence, to overcome the problem completely, doctors recommend for treatment procedure i.e. surgery of the nerve sheath tumor.

Other Factors Determine the Requirement of Surgery

Other than aforementioned aspects, doctors recommend for surgery based on following important factors, which include-

Location of the Tumor

Location of the benign sheath tumor has a prime role to determine the necessity of its removal. These tumors usually grow in your spinal cord and compress the spinal cord or spinal nerves. In such situations, small tumors even create many big problems. In case your tumor contains compressing nerves already or causes neurological symptoms, neurologists and other experts recommend for the surgery. Along with this, in case your tumor growth has the probability to produce compression of nerves in the near future, surgery is recommendable. On the other side, if the size of sheath tumor is relatively small and its location does not create any problem to vital structures and/or organs of your body, doctors choose for regular observation of the patient.

Overall Health Prior to Tumor Surgery

Your overall health is another prime factor associated with determining the requirement of surgical removal of nerve sheath tumor. Patients with better overall health before undergoing tumor surgery are able to withstand the stress associated with operation and may expect for relatively faster health recovery. You have to discuss with your doctor in case of any concern or doubt related to your health post-surgery or you are a perfect candidate for surgery.

Pre-existing Medical Conditions

Pre-existing medical conditions form major components associated with your overall health. In case you possess any type of pre-existing condition, which may complicate the surgery of your benign type of nerve sheath tumor, neurologist may recommend you medications or alternative treatment options.

Conclusion

Considering each of the aforementioned aspects related to nerve sheath tumor, especially noncancerous type of tumor, we should say that the treatment options for benign nerve sheath tumors depend solely on individual cases. For this, neurologists and other doctors work with you for understanding your lifestyle, health and your expectations post treatment.

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Team PainAssist
Team PainAssist
Written, Edited or Reviewed By: Team PainAssist, Pain Assist Inc. This article does not provide medical advice. See disclaimer
Last Modified On:December 11, 2018

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