[Velshi:] Those are the folks making it all happen.
[Romans:] That's the real work in there.
[Velshi:] Legendary TV star Mary Tyler Moore is set to undergo brain surgery. The procedure is elective. She's choosing to do it. Neurosurgeons will be removing a slow-growing tumor known as meningioma. It's something they've been monitoring for some time.
[Romans:] That's right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, our chief medical correspondent, and a neurosurgeon himself, he's going to join us from the CNN center in Atlanta to explain why they decided not to have this removed right away. Hi, Sanjay.
[Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Cnn Chief Medical Correspondent:] Hey, good morning. Yes, this is one of those interesting things. Because it is benign, because it is sometimes found as we refer to it incidentally, so someone may be going in for to the doctor for headaches or maybe after a car accident or a fall and they get a CAT scan, and they find that there is no bleeding or anything as a result of the accident. But there's this meningioma, this brain tumor, sitting there as well. It might be small at the time. And at that time usually a discussion takes place between patient and doctor saying look, there's a small thing there, it may not affect you in your entire life, it's not causing any problems. We don't know that we need to do anything except sort of observe this sort of tumor. Let me show you on this model of the brain, if I can, really quickly. As Ali mentioned, these are tumors that are called meningioma. They're typically found on top of the brain. They may be sort of pushing into the brain somewhat. They come from a lining right outside the brain, but they're not sort of in the brain, in the substance or sort of the spongy part of the brain as much. So it's a fairly straightforward operation. But again to your question, a lot of times the decision just as you know, look, if the person may not need the operation at all in their lifetime, let's just watch this.
[Velshi:] Sanjay you know, Christine, Sanjay and I had occasion to discuss this a couple of weeks ago by chance and he explained to me in great detail what these are about. And I ask now, Sanjay, if it is slow growing and it's not it doesn't seem to be presenting any danger, why the decision? Why did Mary Tyler Moore make the decision to operate on it now why does a doctor and a patient ever make that decision?
[Gupta:] Yes. Well, there's really three major reasons. One is that it starts to grow more quickly. So you get this pattern you get these bits of information. You're maybe getting a scan every year and the tumor doesn't seem to be changing much or just very slow rate of growth as mentioned. And then all of a sudden in one year to the next, there's a rapid growth. That could be a sign to operate. That says look, this thing is starting to grow in a different different pace. It could change in its nature. So looking at it, it's got a very distinctive appearance when you look at these. If it starts to look different, you may wonder, is this turning from a benign tumor into a more malignant tumor. Or in the third case, as you might expect, if it starts to present any -cause any problem, if someone starts to have headaches because of it, starts to have blurriness of vision, if it's pushing on areas that cause weakness or loss of sensation in part of the body, those can also be signs, as well. So, you know, it's really a balance, though, between, you know, she's 74. She has this tumor. It may have grown. Putting her it's a big operation to do, although, you know, successfully done every day in this country. Balancing that versus, you know, may she not need this operation for the rest of her life.
[Velshi:] Correct.
[Gupta:] They decided in this case it was time to operate.
[Velshi:] Good information, Sanjay. Thanks very much for that.
[Gupta:] Thank you. You got it.
[Romans:] A programming note for you, too. Be sure to watch CNN this Saturday and Sunday morning at 7:30 Eastern for "
[Sanjay Gupta Reports:] SAVING GABBY GIFFORDS". Sanjay is going to meet the paramedics and doctors credited with saving the life of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, of course, who was shot in the head and survived an attack on her life.
[Velshi:] Not only remarkably inspirational, but I think we all got smarter about the brain thanks to that incident and of course thanks to Sanjay knowing so much about it. So I'm going to be interested to watch that.
[Romans:] Me too.
[Velshi:] Our top stories are coming up right after the break. It's 54 after the hour.