Medicine and Health
symptoms
Symptoms of brain cancer depend on which parts of the brain are involved and which functional systems are affected. For example, vision problems may result from a tumor near the optic nerve. A tumor in the front part of the brain may affect the ability to concentrate and think. A tumor located in an area that controls motor function may cause weakness, numbness or difficulty with speech.
Signs of brain cancer may include:
- A headache that changes depending on the time of day and position of the head, and worsens over time
- Seizures
- Numbness
- Nausea or vomiting
- Memory loss
- Muscle weakness
- Speech difficulty
Diagnosing brain cancer
- Biopsy
- Laboratory tests, including advanced genomic testing that looks for DNA alterations that may be causing a cancer to grow
- Nuclear medicine bone scan
- Angiography
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
- Computed tomography (CT) scan
- Positron emission tomography (PET) scan
Brain cancer treatment -
- Surgery, neurosurgery and craniotomy
- Minimally invasive surgical techniques, including endoscopy
- Intraoperative neuro navigation, a brain-mapping procedure
- Intraoperative electrophysiology brain-mapping, also called motor mapping and language mapping
- Intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT)
- Radiation therapy, including external beam radiation and whole-brain radiation
- Chemotherapy, including local chemotherapy and systemic chemotherapy
- Targeted therapy, addressing specific pathways or abnormal brain cells involved in tumor growth