Primary brain tumor

Disease	Injury	Nutrition	Poison

Special Topic	Surgery	Symptoms	Test

Brain

Primary brain tumor

Alternative Names:

Glioblastoma multiforme; Ependymoma; Glioma; Astrocytoma; Brain tumor - primary; Medulloblastoma; Neuroglioma; Oligodendroglioma; Meningioma; Cancer - brain tumor (primary)

Symptoms:

Headache
- Recent onset of new type
- Persistent
- Worse on awakening
Vomiting
- Possibly accompanied by nausea
- More severe in the morning
Personality changes and behavior changes
Emotional instability, rapid emotional changes
Intellectual decline
- Loss of memory
- Impaired calculating abilities
- Impaired judgment
Seizures, new onset
Reduced level of consciousness (decreased alertness)
Neurologic changes
- Vision changes (double vision, decreased vision)
- Hearing loss
- Decreased sensation of a body area
- Weakness of a body area
- Speech difficulties
- Decreased coordination, clumsiness, falls
Fever (sometimes)
Weakness, lethargy
General ill feeling (malaise)
Positive Babinski's reflex
Decerebrate posture
Decorticate posture

IN INFANTS

Bulging fontanelles
Separated sutures
Opisthotonos
Increased head circumference
No red reflex in the eye

Note: Specific symptoms vary.

Additional symptoms that may be associated with primary brain tumors:

Signs and tests:

Examination often shows focal (isolated location) or general neurologic changes that are specific to the location of the tumor. Some tumors may not show symptoms until they are very large and cause rapid neurologic decline, others are characterized by slowly progressive symptoms. Most brain tumors will include signs typical of space-occupying masses (aggregations of cells) which cause increased intracranial pressure and compression of brain tissue.

The diagnosis may be confirmed, and the tumor localized, by:

CT scan of the head
MRI of the head
Angiography of the head
EEG may reveal focal (localized) abnormalities.
Examination of tissue removed from the tumor during surgery or CT scan-guided biopsy is used to confirm the exact type of tumor.
Examination of the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) may reveal cancerous cells.

This disease may also alter the results of a CPK isoenzymes test.

Review Date: 11/7/2002
Reviewed By: Ezra E. W. Cohen, M.D., Department of Medicine, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network.

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