Brain tumor history and symptoms

Overview
Although there is no specific clinical symptom or sign for brain tumors, slowly progressive focal neurologic signs and signs of elevated intracranial pressure, as well as epilepsy in a patient with a negative history for epilepsy should raise red flags. However, a sudden onset of symptoms, such as an epileptic seizure in a patient with no prior history of epilepsy, sudden intracranial hypertension (this may be due to bleeding within the tumor, brain swelling or obstruction of cerebrospinal fluid's passage) is also possible.

Symptoms
Symptoms include phantom odors and tastes. Often, in the case of metastatic tumors, the smell of vulcanized rubber is prevalent.

General signs and symptoms include the following:


 * Headaches.
 * Seizures.
 * Visual changes.
 * Gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, loss of appetite, and vomiting.
 * Changes in personality, mood, mental capacity, and concentration.

Whether primary, metastatic, malignant, or benign, brain tumors must be differentiated from other space-occupying lesions such as abscesses, arteriovenous malformations, and infarction, which can have a similar clinical presentation. Other clinical presentations of brain tumors include focal cerebral syndromes such as seizures. Seizures are a presenting symptom in approximately 20% of patients with supratentorial brain tumors and may antedate the clinical diagnosis by months to years in patients with slow-growing tumors. Among all patients with brain tumors, 70% with primary parenchymal tumors and 40% with metastatic brain tumors develop seizures at some time during the clinical course.

Headaches caused by brain tumors may:


 * Be worse when the person wakes up in the morning, and clear up in a few hours
 * Occur during sleep
 * Occur with vomiting, confusion, double vision, weakness, or numbness
 * Get worse with coughing or exercise, or with a change in body position

Other symptoms may include:


 * Change in alertness (including sleepiness, unconsciousness, and coma)
 * Changes in hearing
 * Changes in taste or smell
 * Changes that affect touch and the ability to feel pain, pressure, different temperatures, or other stimuli
 * Clumsiness
 * Confusion or memory loss
 * Difficulty swallowing
 * Difficulty writing or reading
 * Dizziness or abnormal sensation of movement (vertigo)
 * Eye problems


 * Eyelid drooping
 * Pupils of different sizes
 * Uncontrollable movements


 * Hand tremor
 * Lack of control over the bladder or bowels
 * Loss of balance
 * Loss of coordination
 * Muscle weakness in the face, arm, or leg (usually on just one side)
 * Numbness or tingling on one side of the body
 * Personality, mood, behavior, or emotional changes
 * Problems with eyesight, including decreased vision, double vision, or total loss of vision
 * Trouble speaking or understanding others who are speaking
 * Trouble walking

Other symptoms that may occur with a pituitary tumor:


 * Abnormal nipple discharge
 * Absent menstruation (periods)
 * Breast development in men
 * Enlarged hands, feet
 * Excessive body hair
 * Facial changes
 * Low blood pressure
 * Obesity
 * Sensitivity to heat or cold