Brain Tumors

Definition

Brain tumors develop when brain cells proliferate abnormally. Most often brain tumors are not primary but metastatic cancers from other organs of the body. But there are also primary brain tumors such as gliomas and meningiomas.

Symptoms/ Diagnosis

The main symptoms are severe and persistent headache, vision problems, speech and hearing difficulties, balance difficulties, vomiting, numbness, difficulty moving, changes in behavior, loss of consciousness, seizures, fainting.

The diagnosis usually includes a complete neurological examination and imaging with magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography of the brain. The final diagnosis is made only after surgical biopsy of the tumor.

Treatment

Primary malignancies of the brain are a complex therapeutic problem. Medicine today has 3 main weapons in the treatment of brain tumors:

• Surgery: Surgery is very important in the treatment of brain tumors. The goal is to remove the tumor completely or at least most of it, but without causing further neurological damage to the patient.
• Radiation therapy: Radiation therapy helps to control the disease locally and reduce relapses.
• Chemotherapy
• Targeted therapies

The acquisition of histological material is useful not only for the diagnosis but also for the detection of mutations that give sensitivity to chemotherapeutic drugs and targeted therapies.