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Your Health: Fighting brain cancer
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Glioma is a broad term of brain and spinal cord tumors that comes from glial cells. Glial cells are the main brain cells that can develop into cancer.
St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center
The symptoms, prognosis and treatment of a malignant glioma can vary depending on the person's age, the exact type of tumor and the location of the tumor within the brain.
These tumors tend to grow or infiltrate into the normal brain tissue, which makes surgical removal very difficult and even impossible for some patients. This makes the prognosis for many patients very dim. Forty-two percent of all brain tumors, even benign tumors, are gliomas, 77 percent of malignant brain tumors are gliomas, according to Medscape.com and WebMD.
Symptoms of a glioma are similar to other malignant brain tumors and vary depending on the area of the brain affected. The most common symptom is headache, affecting about half of all people with a brain tumor. Other symptoms can include seizures, memory loss and physical weakness, loss of muscle control, visual symptoms, language problems, cognitive decline and personality changes. These symptoms may change depending on which part of the brain is affected.
Symptoms may worsen or change as the tumor continues to grow and destroys brain cells, compresses parts of the brain and causes swelling in the brain and pressure in the skull. A person may be unaware that they have a tumor as the symptoms can be somewhat deceiving.
The only known risk factor for malignant gliomas is prior radiation to the brain. Family history accounts for less than 5 percent of causes for developing these tumors. Some genetic disorders increase the risk of development of these tumors in children but rarely in adults. There are no lifestyle risk factors linked to malignant gliomas. This includes alcohol, cigarette smoking or cell phone use.
Traditional treatments for glioma patients include surgical removal of the tumor, or chemo and radiation therapy. Unfortunately, gliomas can grow back very quickly, so although treatments may initially appear to be working, once treatments are stopped the tumors can resurface.
Now, an approach that has been common in other countries is also being used by one doctor in the United States. An alternative approach called subpial resection, commonly used to treat seizures, is also used to treat gliomas. The results attained from removal of the glioma have shown great success in some patients.