Know More About Brain Tumor

Good morning, I am Dr Dhruv Chaturvedi I am a neurosurgeon, I get my training from the esteemed All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the following which I have done training in brain and spine surgeries at many years Centre which include UK, Germany, Singapore and Bangkok. I have been practicing neurosurgery in the city of Delhi for more than 15 years now rather that I was working at All India Institute of Medical Sciences. I deal with various ailments involving the brain and spine but today I am going to talk about a much dreaded ailment in the brain, which is brain tumor. As you all know brain tumors are increasing rather all the cancers in the human body are increasing, this has partly to do with the type of exposure that we get from various environmental agents and partly to do with the lifestyle. As soon as the brain tumors are concerned, we have an incidence of almost 1-million in India itself in a year. The brain tumor can affect any age group but most commonly they affect people who are beyond 60’s. This is so because tumors or the cancers arising from any other part of body make in access to look brain structures and hence form secondary tumor there also. So if we have to categorise the brain tumors, they can be categorised into benign or non cancerous and cancerous. This is the primary division of brain tumors, then we talk about the cancerous tumors, the cancerous tumors may arise from within the brain or from the cells within the brain or they can arise as a metastasis from some other tumor in other portions of the body. Brain tumors are fairly common and they are fit all the age groups, the most common tumor that we see in adults as I say are seen beyond 60 years of age and the metastasis or secondary tumors. In which the tumor has come or the cancer has come from the other portion in the body. Where is the benign tumors if we see they are more commonly merinduimu. In the children however the most common tumors are neuroblastoma . The what we should know about brain tumor is what are the signs or what are the problems that a person will have they have a brain tumor. Well, the most common problems then that person will have is a headache, which is generally a morning headache and may be associated with vomiting, which can be frodectile. In addition to that a person may have seizures which commonly known as fits or various neurological deficits like weakness of one of the Limbs in the body, the person can have problems in the vision, the person can have memory deficits or behavioral changes these are the most commonly seen symptoms which are associated with brain tumor. These days with the aquant of new techniques in Radiology, it is very easy for us to diagnose the brain tumor and these are the generally diagnosed with the help of contrast-enhanced imaging. Which may be a contrast-enhanced CT Scan or a contrast-enhanced MRI, MRI obviously scores above the CT Scan. As well as the treatment is concerned most of the brain tumors have to be removed surgically, now why it is essential firstly because it gives us a tissue for diagnosis as to what type of the brain tumor it is. Secondly to relieve a patient of its symptoms it is very essential. Now depending upon whether the Biopsy what we get is cancerous or non cancerous, further treatment is going to be decided on that. If it's cancerous tumor a patient may require in addition to surgery radiotherapy or chemotherapy or both. We also have immunotherapy coming up and research is directed towards that. Where is in benign tumors generally the surgery is sufficient. Here I would like to emphasize that not all brain tumors are cancerous rather many of them are benign and a person can have a normal life expectancy following the surgery for these brain tumors. Whereas in cancers the outcome is generally not so good, the tumors are graded as per the gradings, they can be from grade 1 to grade 4, grade 4 have a poor outcome, whereas great 1 has an outcome where a person can have the survival of around 10 years. If it present to us on time. So if you have any further queries regarding brain tumors, you can contact me either on Lybrate or at Vimhans PrimaMed Super Speciality Hospital, which is based in Nehru Nagar, or as you can visit my clinic which is there in Tagore Garden. Wishing you all the best. Thank you.