Brain Cancer is normally called a Brain Tumor. There are two types of Brain cancer, the first is a primary brain tumor that begins in the brain and the other is a tumor the starts in another part of the body and moves to the brain. Symptoms of having a brain tumor are weakness, headaches, nausea and vomiting, blurry vision, hard time walking and seizures. Other signs can be changes in someone’s alertness, mental capacity, memory, speech and personality. When a doctor is testing to see if someone has a brain tumor they do a physical test and CT or MRI scan. Anyone can get a brain tumor, more than 196,000 people in the US are diagnosed with a brain tumor, out of those people 75% have a benign tumor and the rest are considered to have a malignant tumor, for those with a malignant tumor the survival rate is 32%. Charles Byron Wilson MD started The Brain Tumor Research Center (BTRC) over 40 years ago because of the lack of treatment for those with a malignant brain tumor. After faculty appointments at Tulane and then Louisiana State University, Wilson established the Division of Neurosurgery at the University of Kentucky Medical School in 1963. Wilson launched an experimental program to study the behavior of brain tumors, the nature and growing rate, and how they were able to cause death. Among the most promising areas of investigation was a series of experiments in which potentially effective drugs were administered to tumor-bearing rats. Wilson, with Harvard cerebrospinal fluid physiologist Edgar Bering, organized the Kentucky Conference on Brain Tumor Chemotherapy that was held in 1965. Wilson outlined the objective of the conference before an audience of senior workers in the field to find a cure for malignant brain tumors.
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...t’s kind of hard to find good solid information about brain tumors. It was hard to find any information because the majority of the articles were very short and repeated a lot of the same information. There also wasn’t a lot on the history of brain tumors.
Works Cited
Brain cancer. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/braincancer.html
Davis, C. (n.d.). Brain cancer. Retrieved from http://www.medicinenet.com/brain_cancer/article.htm
Brain tumors . (n.d.). Retrieved from http://cancer.stanford.edu/braincancer/brain.html
The brain tumor research center: Development of the center from vision to reality. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://neurosurgery.medschool.ucsf.edu/general_information/neurosurgery_history_btrc.html
Finding support & coping. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.braintumor.org/brain-tumor-information/finding-support-and-coping/
Snell, Richard S: Clinical Neuroanatomy for Medical Students. Little, Brown, and Company, Boston, 1957, pp. 220--222.
The distribution of the type of brain and CNS tumors is shown in Figure 2.
There are two main categories of brain tumors as to the seriousness; Malignant, and Benign. A Malignant tumor can grow and spread aggressively, and overpower other healthy cells by taking their space, blood, and nutrients. A Benign tumor is less serious than a Malignant, however, it can still cause many problems in the brain by pressing on nearby tissue. They are typically slow growing and rarely spread to other parts of the body. Benign brain tumors can be considered Malignant if they are located in areas of the brain that control vital functions like breathing. Unlike benign tumors, the cell structure of a malignant brain tumor is largely different than normal brain cells. Malignant tumors tend to grow faster and can be more invasive than benign tumors. They are also are life threatening. Tumors are classified as grades one through four. The more aggressive a brain tumor is, the higher the score. Another type of tumor is the pituitary tumor. A pituitary tumor is an abnormal growth of cells in the pituitary gland. It’s about the size of a pea and it’s located at the center of the brain behind the nose and eyes. "Malignant and Benign Brain Tumors."
Cancer. A word that many people know as a reality. There are many different types of cancer that affect various amounts of people. One especially dangerous cancer is neuroblastoma. “Neuroblastoma . . . accounts for about 6% of all cancers in children . . . The average age at the time of diagnosis is about 1 to 2 years” ("What Are the Key Statistics about Neuroblastoma?"). Neuroblastoma is a devastating cancer found mostly in young children that is hard to terminate but learning the symptoms and most effective treatments can help with diagnosis and cure for an affected child.
According to SEER Statistics, 23,380 people are estimated to get a brain or nervous system cancer diagnosis. Out of those people, 14,320 people are estimated to die from their brain or nervous system cancer diagnosis (National Cancer Institute). Cancer is a type of dangerous tumor, or a buildup of extra cells that form a mass of tissue, that can be life threatening (National Cancer Institute). The term for a tumor that is cancerous is a malignat tumor, whereas a benign tumor does not contain cancer cells (National Cancer Institute). According to the National Cancer Institute, the causes of brain cancer are unknown, but risk factors include family history and excessive radiaton exposure. Although they are not always due to a brain tumor, comon symptoms include headaches, nausea, speech, hearing, vision, and mood changes, problems with balance and mamories, seizures, and numbness in arms and legs (National Cancer Institute). MRI and CT scans as well as surgical biposies (or the removal of part of the tumor to be examined) are used to diagnose brain cancer (National Cancer Institute). Different types of treatment options include radiation therapy, surgery to remove the tumor, and chemotherapy. According to Charles Davis, MD, PhD and Nitin Tandon, MD of WebMD.com, chemotherapy is “ the use of powerful drugs to kill tumor cells”. There are a few different types of chemotherapy, but all of which bring out the same kinds of side effects. Although the physical side effects of chemotherapy are commonly known, few people know of the emotional toll chemotherapy can take on a patient and his or her family as they go though this process.
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide as it can develop in almost any organ or tissue. Significant advances in understanding the cellular basis of cancer and the underlying biological mechanisms of tumour has been vastly improved in the recent years (Jiang et al. 1994). Cancer is a genetic disease which requires series of mutation during cell division to develop, it has characteristics which can be associated with their ability to grow and divide abnormal cells uncontrollable while in the mean time invade and cause nearby blood vessels to serve its need. Even though many people are affected by cancer today, the abilities which cancer cells own make it hard to find single effective treatment for cancer. The focus of research now lies on developing drugs which target cancer cells in the hope to cure cancer once and for all.
Fewer than ten percent of most cancers are thought to be due to strong hereditary factors. Many physicians believe that prevention is the best way to effectively tackle cancer. One of those factors in prevention is the individual knowing their family history so that they can develop an awareness of their families' cancer lineage. Other factors are a balanced diet, not smoking, moderate alcohol consumption and exercise. Strong hereditary factors that increase cancer risk are more likely to be found in families that have:
Cancer Cancer is a disease in which cells grow out of control and invade, erode, and destroy normal tissue. Damaged genes cause this development of cancer. These damaged genes are often a factor caused by such things such as the environment, and can be influenced by inherited factors. As the very early damaged cells divide they can evolve into a malignant cell population, and lose the control mechanism that govern normal cell division. These malignant cells can then go on to form solid tumours that start to destroy normal tissue.
2 Brain death. In Wynngaarden JB, Smith LH, Bennet JC(eds): Cecil Textbook of Medicine, 20th edition. W B Saunders Company, 1996.
That Tuesday, my mom woke me up to the darkness of the world to get ready to embark on our expedition to the hospital. As we arrived, my dad got wheeled away for surgery. Afterwards, Dr. Shelhav called my mother and me into his office describing that everything went as expected, but he took a biopsy to ensure there was no nerve damage. Biopsy I quickly scribbled down in my notebook knowing I'll have to do more research.
How does one see the symptoms for childhood cancer? First one must know that there are many different types. There are forty different types of children’s cancer, including: Leukemia, Lymphoma, Sarcomas, cancers of the nervous system, liver cancers, kidney cancer, and more. Out of these cancers, the two most common childhood cancers are Leukemia, and brain tumors. What is leukemia? It is a cancer in which the bone marrow and other organs that produce blood produce and increased amount of immature or abnormal white blood cells. The symptoms of leukemia are paleness, excessive bruising, pain in the joints, and fatigue. Brain tumors are formed when a massive amount of cells are produced on the brain. The symptoms for this are frequent headaches, vomiting, seizures, decreased coordination, weakness, and problems concerning vision.
Benign tumors are made up of cells similar to the surrounding normal cells and are enclosed in a membrane that prevents them from penetrating the neighboring tissues. They are dangerous only if their physical presence interferes with body functions. For example, if a benign tumor grows in the brain and blocks the flow of blood to the brain, that can kill a person. To find out what kind of tumor that the person might have, the doctor will either do an X ray or a biopsy. If the tumor shows to be benign they might leave it or they might choose to remove it. But, if it shows to be a malignant tumor, more drastic steps are taken to get rid of the tumors. In this paper I will talk abo...