Brain Cancer
By Preston Allen 4/8/16
What is Brain Cancer?
Brain cancer is a type of cancer that can occur when the cells in brain tissue become cancerous and spend more time in mitosis, causing the cells to abnormally grow and press on the surrounding areas of the brain. Brain cancer normally affects different parts of the brain depending on where the cancer is, or the upper spinal cord and central nervous system if the tumor begins closer to the spinal cord.
Symptoms of Brain Cancer
The symptoms of brain cancer can vary depending on the location of the tumor. If the tumor is closer to the spinal cord and hits part of the central nervous system, it can impair someones movements. Other symptoms can include: Headache patterns, nausea, vision problems, balance difficulties, speech impairments, confusion in everyday matters, seizures, behavior changes, and hearing problems.
Causes of Brain Cancer
Only about 5% of brain cancer cases can be from hereditary or genetic inheritance. There are only a few natural causes that are suspected to cause brain cancer, they are high doses of radiation from x-rays, and hereditary inheritance.
Prevention
There are no certain ways to prevent brain tumors, but you can go for screening occasionally to check for it, so this way if they do, you can catch the tumor early before it becomes a major problem.
Treatment
There are no proven options for medications to treat brain cancer. The proven treatments for brain cancer are surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. Healthy dieting and lifestyle choices are always suggested but not proven to always treat cancer, but do help the process.
Diagnosis Options
Ways that doctors use to diagnose begin with checking for symptoms, if they recognize symptoms your doctor may give you a physical exam of your vision, hearing, movement, etc. If the physical test is suspicious a doctor may send the patient to do neurological exams, MRI's, CT scans, angiograms, spinal taps, or a biopsy.
People that are likely to get Brain Cancer
The risk of brain cancer increases with a person's age, the main group that has a higher risk for a brain tumor are people above the age of 50. This group's risk factor is not increased by a lot, but only about 5% higher.
Application of Research
In my research, I learned about the risk factors of brain cancer, and how certain lifestyle choices and scanning for cancer can help prevent it and keep me from a serious condition of uncaught brain cancer.
Citations
Brain Cancer Information Website- National Cancer institute
http://www.cancer.gov/types/brain
Brain Cancer Pamphlet- National Cancer Institute
http://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/brain.pdf
Causes and Symptoms of brain cancer- Mayoclinic
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/brain-tumor/symptoms-causes/dxc-20117134
Image Location- Britannica Image Quest