Brain Tumor – Symptoms

How do brain tumor symptoms develop?

Sometimes a longer period of time passes before a brain tumor causes symptoms. Only after years to months can a brain tumor classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a first or second degree cause symptoms. In WHO grade III or IV, however, the first brain tumor signs usually appear after only a few weeks to days.

When a brain tumor causes symptoms, it can have several reasons:

The tumor – whether good or malignant – can take up a lot of space. As a result, it can displace important structures in the brain and impair their function. However, it can also grow into the surrounding brain tissue (instead of displacing it) and destroy it – depending on the affected area, the corresponding brain tumor symptoms result. In addition, a tumor can cause the pressure in the skull to rise due to the mass. Because unlike in other organs, the space within the bony skull is limited. For example, new onset headaches, nausea, and vomiting may be signs of brain tumors caused by pressure increase.

Some symptoms indicate the location of the tumor

The location of the tumor in the brain can often be recognized by where on the body symptoms occur: If a brain tumor causes symptoms preferentially on the left side of the body, it is probably located in the right hemisphere. On the other hand, brain tumor symptoms on the right side usually indicate a tumor in the left hemisphere. If one associates the brain tumor signs with a specific location (hearth) in the brain, they are called focal neurological hearth symptoms. If the brain tumor patient has a speech disorder (aphasia), this indicates damage to the speech center.

Common brain tumor symptoms

Most brain tumor signs (such as headache, dizziness, etc.) are very nonspecific and can also be seen on many other conditions. Especially if they occur in combination, but they can point to a brain tumor. If you suffer from the following symptoms, you should therefore go to the doctor:

a headache

New headaches that become more violent over a few days or weeks and also increase while lying down are a suspicious sign. Brain tumor headaches occur especially at night and early in the morning. They often improve spontaneously during the day. Pain intensity or pain character are often described by those affected as very different than in previously experienced headache. In most cases, tumor-related headaches can only be relieved little or not at all by conventional analgesics. Trigger for the symptoms is the increase in pressure in the skull, caused by the growing brain tumor.

Nausea and vomiting

Many people develop symptoms such as nausea and vomiting in a brain tumor. These symptoms can also be the result of increased intracranial pressure. Often, those affected are sick in the morning even though they have not eaten. But this can also have other causes such as an ordinary gastrointestinal infection, pregnancy or alcohol intoxication.

blurred vision

In order for people to perceive certain images with the eye, the information must be captured by the retina and reach the back of the eye via the visual pathway into the visual center. At virtually every point of the way, a brain tumor can trigger symptoms in terms of vision problems. Most of the time, a certain area in the field of vision fails – it is simply perceived by those affected as a black spot. Physicians call this visual field defects. In the beginning, such brain tumor symptoms are often unnoticed because the human brain can easily calculate the missing image information.

Visual disturbances are especially common in a pituitary adenoma. This is a benign brain tumor growing in the pituitary gland (pituitary gland). Signs of this tumor is often that the view is limited as from blinkers from the outside.

Other neurological deficits

In addition to visual disturbances, other neurological deficits may turn out to be brain tumor symptoms. They are caused by the fact that the brain tumor directly destroys nerve tissue or otherwise interferes with its function (eg through pressure). Possible brain tumor symptoms in terms of neurological deficits are (apart from visual disturbances), for example, paralysis, numbness (such as on individual limbs) and speech disorders. Also, swallowing disorders are possible tumor-related symptoms. Brain tumor patients may also suffer from dizziness and deafness.

seizure

A seizure is often one of the very first brain tumor symptoms, especially in children. Patients may experience either a partial or a generalized seizure. A focal seizure is reflected in a specific organ area. For example, an arm or a leg twitches. This type of seizure can also turn into a generalized seizure that affects the entire body. Mostly sufferers lose consciousness during a seizure.

Hormonal disorders

Brain tumor symptoms can be in the form of various hormonal disorders. This is the case, for example, with a pituitary adenoma: the pituitary gland is an important gland in the brain that produces hormones that regulate the function of other hormone glands in the body. A tumor of the pituitary gland can interfere with this. Possible consequences include brain tumor symptoms, such as the sleep-wake cycle, body growth or sexuality. However, such hormonal disorders are nonspecific symptoms: brain tumor is just one of their potential causes.

Impairment of memory

A malignant process in the head sometimes causes cognitive symptoms. Brain tumor patients, for example, may be impaired in their attention and may be less aware of certain things than they used to. Concentration disorders and forgetfulness can have many causes (such as increasing age) and do not necessarily represent brain tumor symptoms.

Changes in mental health

Brain tumor symptoms can also affect mental health. Sometimes, depression, apathy and anxiety are the cause of the disease.

personality changes

Brain tumor symptoms can also affect the personality, which often does not strike the affected person, but rather their fellow human beings. For example, mild irritability and increased distractibility in patients with a brain tumor may be symptoms of the disease. Sometimes existing personality traits may become worse or flatter. These Brain Tumor Symptoms Often, they creep in and usually induce late for a doctor’s visit.