Symptoms of Brain Tumor

SYMPTOMS OF BRAIN TUMOURS

The major symptoms are headache, nausea and vomiting, and drowsiness. Headache is the most common symptom in patients with cerebral astro cytoma and occurs in nearly three-quarters of patients; vomiting occurs in about one-third. The headaches are usually gradually progressive and although frequently worse on the side of the tumour, they may be bitemporal and diffuse. Characteristically, the headache is worse on walking and improves during the day.

Nausea and vomiting occur as the intracranial pressure increases and the patient frequently indicates that vomiting may temporarily relieve the severe headache. Drowsiness, that is a deterioration of conscious state, is the most important symptom and sign of raised in tracranial pressure. The extent of impairment of conscious state will be related to the severity of raised intracranial pressures. An alert patient with severely raised intracranial pressure may rapidly deteriorate and become deeply unconscious when there is only a very small further rise in the pressure within the cranial cavity.

Focal neurological deficits

Focal neurological deficits are common in patients presenting with cerebral gliomas; the nature of the deficit will depend on the position of the tumour. Patients presenting with tomours involving the frontal lobes frequently have pseudopsychiatric problems, personality change and mood disturbance. These changes are particularly characteristic of the ‘butterfly glioma’, so called because its involved both frontal lobes by spreading across the corpus, giving it a characteristic macroscopic (Fig. 6.4) and the CT scan appearance. This type of tumours may also occur posteriorly, with spread across the splenium of the corpus callosum into both parieto-occipitals lobes.

Limb Paresis results from interference with the pyramidal tracts, either at a cortical or a sub cortical level, and occurs in just under 50% of patients.

Field defects associated with tomours of the temporal, of the temporal, occipital and parietal jobs are common, but may be evident only on careful testing. Dysphasia, either expressive or receptive, is a particularly distressing symptom occurring in patients with tumours involving the relevant areas of the dominant hemisphere.

Those deep to the cortex and tumours involving the occipital lobe are less likely to cause epilepsy than those which are more anteriorly placed. As trocytomas may produce either generalized or focal seizures; the focal characteristics will depend on the position within the brain and the cortical structures involved.