LOS ANGELES -- A 9-year-old Virginia boy successfully underwent a biopsy Wednesday to remove most of a brain tumor he called "Frank," a nickname his mother used to raise thousands of dollars for medical bills in an online auction of a "Frank Must Die" bumper sticker.

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Images: Surgeons Remove "Frank"
Images: "Frank" The Tumor

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"It really went very well. I'm thrilled," said Dr. Hrayr Shahinian, who performed the surgery at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Skull Base Institute in Los Angeles.

David Dingman-Grover of Sterling, Va., went into surgery around 10 a.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, accompanied by his mother and grandfather, said Frank Groff, spokesman for the Institute. A little more than two hours later, he was awake and talking, Shahinian said.

"He was asking for Ben, his teddy bear and for his mom," Shahinian said. "Those were the two things he asked for, and he got both of them."

Shahinian said David's oncologists must now decided whether to give him one more round of chemotherapy or wait six months and do another MRI.

"We have to sit tight and wait to see... is Frank dead?" Shahinian said.

That question will be answered after doctors study cells from the tumor.

On Tuesday, David, wearing glasses, jeans and an orange "Lilo & Stitch" T-shirt, shared smiles and kisses with his mother but said he was frightened during a news conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

"I'm scared a little," said the boy, who was diagnosed in May 2003 with embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma. A grapefruit-sized tumor was impinging on his optic nerves and carotid arteries, causing blindness and headaches. He named it after Frankenstein's monster.

Chemotherapy and radiation treatments shrank it to the size of an apricot, restoring his vision, but there were serious side-effects. For a while he couldn't walk or eat and had to be fed through a tube, his mother said.

Shahinian performed the biopsy using a relatively new, less invasive procedure.

A fiber-optic tube the size of a child's drinking straw was inserted in his nose and threaded to the tumor so cells could be removed and tested to determine if it is dead or still growing, said Shahinian, who has performed more than 2,000 of the procedures over the past decade.

The usual procedure for such tumors involves peeling back the boy's scalp, cutting through the bone of his skull and lifting his brain to reach the tumor, the doctor said.

But David's mother, Tiffini Dingman-Grover, said that method would "mutilate my child's face."

"It was just inhumane," she said. "I can't do that to my child."

To raise money for an anesthesiologist and other hospital fees involving the biopsy, David's parents auctioned off a bumper sticker reading "Frank Must Die" on eBay.

After the required $20,000 was raised by outside donations, the $10,700 an online casino paid for the sticker was instead donated to a charity that helps families struggling with pediatric cancer. More bumper stickers are being sold online.

Before the news conference, David presented his doctor a T-shirt that said "Frank Must Die."

Shahinian said his patient has taught him about strong character.

"I think he's a lesson in courage, grit and character, the way he is facing his challenge, which is a massive one," he said.