Causes of Brain Cancer and Symptoms of Brain Cancer
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Also called: Glioma, Meningioma
There are two main types of brain cancer. Primary brain cancer starts in the brain. Metastatic brain cancer starts somewhere else in the body and moves to the brain. Brain tumors can be benign, with no cancer cells, or malignant, with cancer cells that grow quickly.
Causes and Risk Factors
Aside from a known association with exposure to vinyl chloride, there are no known chemical or environmental agents that lead to the development of brain tumors.
The following factors have been proposed as possible risk factors for primary brain tumors. Whether these factors actually increase the risk of a brain tumor is not known for sure.
Radiation to the head
An inherited (genetic) risk
HIV infection
Meningioma
Neuroblastoma
Oligodendroglioma
Pineoblastoma
Immune System Disorders
People with impaired immune systems have an increased risk of developing lymphomas of the brain or spinal cord. Lymphomas are cancers of lymphocytes, a type of cell of the immune system. Lymphomas usually form in lymph nodes.
Symptoms of Brain Cancer:
The specific symptoms vary, but may include:
Headache — continues and is worse when the child wakes up
Vomiting — more severe in the morning
Nausea
Personality and behavior changes
Persistent drownsiness
Incontinence
Crossed eyes
Abnormal eye movements or changes in vision
Drowsiness
Changes in personality or memory
Changes in speech
Localized weakness or sensory loss due to invasion or compression of adjacent brain tissue
The resultant neurologic loss dependant on the location of the tumour
Nausea and Vomiting: As with headaches, these are non-specific – which means that most people who have nausea and vomiting do NOT have a brain tumor. Twenty-two percent of the people in our survey reported that they had nausea and /or vomiting as a symptom.
Cancer Treatment
Surgery
Surgery is the treatment of choice for accessible primary brain tumors, when the patient is in good health. The goal of surgery is to remove as much of the tumor as possible without damaging nearby normal brain tissue. The prognosis improves when more than 90% of a tumor can be removed.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is medication which is used as a complementary tool to eliminate remaining cancer cells in the body. A child or teen with cancer is usually given the chemotherapy drugs intravenously (through a vein) or orally (by mouth).
Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy, also called radiotherapy, is the use of high-powered rays to damage cancer cells and stop them from growing. It is often used to destroy tumor tissue that cannot be removed with surgery or to kill cancer cells that may remain after surgery. Radiation therapy also is used when surgery is not possible.
Follow-up testing
Once a patient has been treated for a brain tumor, he or she needs to be closely followed for a recurrence. At first, the patient will have follow-up visits fairly often. The longer he or she is free of disease, the less often he or she will have to go for checkups with examinations. The doctor will decide when to obtain follow-up MRI scans or PET scans.
Watch the video related
-Surgical treatment of Brain Tumor –The diagnosis once cast a pall of despair over its victims, who had little hope and few options for recovery. However, neurosurgical research and innovative treatments are beginning to change that view. “We know so much more about brain tumors then we did 10 years ago,” said John Jane Sr., MD, PhD, Editor of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons” Journal of Neurosurgery and a neurosurgeon in Virginia, “We still have a lot to learn, especially …
Help answer the question
What is the difference between metastasized brain cancer and cancer that started in the brain?
My mother had lung cancer a year ago and although it has not returned, she now has a tumor in her brain the size of a dime. It is cancerous …. so what is the prognosis and what is the difference between this type of brain cancer (where it originated in the lungs) and brain cancer that originiates in the brain. Also, what is the prognosis?
brain cancer
18 Comments
September 16th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
My husband has Stage 4 Brain Cancer "Glioblastoma Multiforme" and currently lost his ability to speak due to 17 brain surgeries, scare tissue built up on the brain, and his cancer (the tumor's location). It is actually not considered "stuttering", they either have slurred speech or have trouble "Word finding" or forming the words.
One would mistake "slurred speech" or "trouble with word finding" as stuttering, it is the first word that best describes the problem if we are unfamiliar with the difference.
It doesn't hurt to get things checked out, an MRI scan will rule out a brain tumor or maybe there is some type of pressure pushing on that perticular part of the brain that controls one's speech (there are actually 2 sections of the brain which controls speech, a section in the front of your brain, and a section in the back of your brain).
Sometimes excessive amounts of fluid or swelling of the brain can cause pressure on those parts which could make one "stutter".
Be safe, get whoever is having the issue checked out. Good Luck
September 16th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Could be due to a number of things including some form of viral infection. If it persists, it would be best to go and see your doctor. But it is unlikely to be a brain tumour resulting from your mobile phone use, as the liklihood of any adverse effects occuring isn't likely to manifest for 10 or more years of heavy phone use.
The thing to remember is that mobile phones have only started being used extensively in the last 8 or so years. It will take time for any definitive effects to become apparent. (typically 10 – 20 years), therefore anyone who says that they are not harmfull is doing so without any real knowledge or understanding!
The fact is that radio frequency (RF) transmissions are DANGEROUS. As to how dangerous, well that all depends on the intensity and duration of exposure. No one really knows and those that say it is not a problem, have no evidence to substantiate that it is not, infact there is more evidence coming to light to say that it is a potentially real serious problem! Any possible adverse effects that these devices have on human tissue, should not be taken lightly! It is still early days and time will tell as it did for smoking, asbestos related products and countless of chemicals and herbacides, in the past.
The simple fact is that everyone should be aware that the longer you use the phone the greater the adverse affects are likely to be. There is no doubt whatsoever, and it is well documented that high levels of RF are DANGEROUS! Cell phones transmit at much lower energy levels, but their consistant and prolonged use may well have a cumalitive effect.
Although there is no proof to indicate that mobile phones can cause cancer, there is sufficient debate and more studies happening to cause doubt as to the relative safety. As a telecommunications engineer I am aware of the power density levels produced by mobile phones and the effect they can have on different people.
Mobile phones transmit using radio frequency radiation (RFR). Dependant on the network this can range between 800MHz and 2GHz. These are radio waves located within the electromagnetic spectrum. X-rays which are known to cause cancer through ionizing radiation are also within the electromagnetic spectrum, however, RFRs cannot cause cancer in the same way as x-rays because RFRs are non-ionizing.
However, high levels of RFRs can cause health effects through heating the human body (thermal effects), resulting in headaches and possibly other symptoms.
Whilst it cannot be shown at this point in time that the thermal effects from mobile phones are a health hazard there is a considerable body of scientific literature which describes the effects of RFR in biological systems that cannot be directly attributed to heating. These effects are referred to as non-thermal and have been demonstrated to cause alteration in animal behaviour, or changes in the functioning of cell membranes.
To limit the possible adverse effects mobile phones may have I would suggest that anyone concerned about their use should;
- Limit the prolonged use of mobiles to under a couple of minutes at a time.
- Use the phone in handsfree speaker mode.
- Avoid using the phone in a confined space (such as in the car or building) as this causes the phone to radiate at the higher power levels to get a signal out.
Personnaly I avoid using the phone as much as possible and if I need to use it I keep it under a few minutes or use it in hands free speaker phone mode.
If you want to read some more detailed neurological studies and reports then checkout the following links;
September 16th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I you are scared you have tumor in brain or brain cancer
GO TO A DOCTOR
September 16th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Maluuuuuuco do Ceu, que loucura!
September 16th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
i love brains.
September 16th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
A lot of stuff has aspartame in it now. Most diet products are sweetened with it.
I have heard that it can slowly poison you and make you sick if you drink or eat a lot of products with it in there. But I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just stop buying products made with it.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Needs more intro.
September 17th, 2009 at 12:58 am
September 17th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
No, you don't have brain cancer. You have hypochondria.
September 17th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
That is all part of puberty. You have nothing to worry about. This is a far cry from brain cancer. The iron pills are a way to replace the blood you lose. Many women are anemic due to the blood they lose and for other reasons. It is not uncommon and iron pills are the most common cure, unless you like eating liver – a lot.
September 17th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Awesome
September 18th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Google prevention for brain cancer.
Google causes of brain cancer.
click through each link and skim the page for your answer
Quick!
September 18th, 2009 at 10:16 am
couldn’t understand, wish there were subtitles. But that was very cool to see…I wonder the results?
September 18th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
i can feel it don’t wory i m with u
September 18th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Does eating brain juice make you smarter? (I can’t tell if what i said is funny or cruel given that you’re actually eating brain juice though…)
September 19th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
There is no proof of this despite much research
September 19th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Well gee, I just watched this…then went to this one only to see the same vid. With a long ass intro!!
September 19th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
It’s not cruel, it’s sorta funny. But no not at all. The brain juice doesn’t even fill u up, but it’s a good thing I can’t taste it!!! Blah! =)