What is Brain cancer?
What is Brain cancer?
- Brain cancer: Cancer of the brain.
- Brain cancer: Benign and malignant neoplasms that arise from or metastasize to structures within the cranium. This includes meningeal and other tumors that occur in the spaces that surround the brain, and neoplasms of the brain.
Source - Diseases Database
- Brain cancer: a tumor in the brain.
Source - WordNet 2.1
Brain cancer: Introduction
Types of Brain cancer:
Types of Brain cancer:
- Primary Brain Tumors - caused by cancer of brain cells.
- Metastatic Brain Cancer - cancer of another part of the body has spread to the brain.
- Benign Brain Tumor
- Primary CNS Lymphoma
- Brain Sarcoma (type of Sarcoma)
- Childhood Brain Cancers
- Spinal Cord Tumor
- Subtypes by type of cell affected:
- Gliomas - begin in the glial supportive tissue
- Medulloblastoma - also called "primitive neuroectodermal tumors (PNET)"
- Meningioma
- Schwannomas (Brain) - begin in Schwann cells; acoustic neuromas are of this type.
- Craniopharyngiomas - around the pituitary gland
- Germ cell tumors (Brain)
- Germinoma (Brain)
- Pineal region tumors - around the pineal gland.
- Pineocytoma
- Pineoblastoma
- Neuroblastoma (Brain)
- Neurocytoma (Brain)
- Ganglioneuroma (Brain)
- Oligodendroglioma
- Grade of the cancer (type of Bladder Cancer) - the level of "differentiation" of the cells, which affects how quickly they grow.
- more types...»
Broader types of Brain cancer:
How many people get Brain cancer?
Incidence (annual) of Brain cancer: 17,000 annual cases in USA (SEER 2002 estimate: brain and other nervous system)
Incidence Rate of Brain cancer: approx 1 in 16,000 or 0.01% or 17,000 people in USA [about data]
Incidence of Brain cancer: Each year more than 17,000 people in the United States find
out they have a brain tumor . (Source: excerpt from What You Need To Know About Brain Tumors: NCI)
Who gets Brain cancer?
Profile for Brain cancer: Although brain tumors can occur at any age, studies show
that they are most common in two age groups. The first group
is children 3 to 12 years old; the second is adults 40 to 70
years old.
(Source: excerpt from What You Need To Know About Brain Tumors: NCI)
How serious is Brain cancer?
Prognosis of Brain cancer: In general, the probable outcome is fairly poor. For many people with metastatic brain tumors, the cancer spreads to other areas of the body. Death often occurs within 2 years.
Complications of Brain cancer:
see complications of Brain cancer
Prognosis of Brain cancer:
Symptoms of brain and spinal cord tumors generally
develop slowly and worsen over time unless they are treated. The tumor may
be classified as benign or malignant and given a numbered score that
reflects how malignant it is. This score can help doctors determine how to
treat the tumor and predict the likely outcome, or prognosis, for the
patient.
(Source: excerpt from NINDS Brain and Spinal Tumors Information Page: NINDS)
Average life years lost for Brain cancer: 24.6 years for brain/CNS cancers (SEER)1
Deaths for Brain cancer: 12,765 deaths reported in USA 1999 for cancer of brain, meninges or CNS (NVSR Sep 2001)
What causes Brain cancer?
Causes of Brain cancer: see causes of Brain cancer
Risk factors for Brain cancer:
see
risk factors for Brain cancer
What are the symptoms of Brain cancer?
Symptoms of Brain cancer:
see symptoms of Brain cancer
Complications of Brain cancer:
see complications of Brain cancer
Can anyone else get Brain cancer?
Contagion of cancer: generally not; see details in contagion of cancer.
More information:
see contagiousness of Brain cancer
Inheritance:
see inheritance of Brain cancer
Brain cancer: Testing
Diagnostic testing: see tests for Brain cancer.
Misdiagnosis: see misdiagnosis and Brain cancer.
How is it treated?
Doctors and Medical Specialists for Brain cancer: Neurosurgeon, Medical oncologist, Radiation oncologist
;
see also doctors and medical specialists for Brain cancer.
Treatments for Brain cancer:
see treatments for Brain cancer
Research for Brain cancer:
see research for Brain cancer
Society issues for Brain cancer
Hospitalization statistics for Brain cancer:
The following are statistics from various sources about hospitalizations and Brain cancer:
- 0.12% (15,230) of hospital consultant episodes were for malignant neoplasm of brain in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)
- 86% of hospital consultant episodes for malignant neoplasm of brain required hospital admission in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)
- 56% of hospital consultant episodes for malignant neoplasm of brain were for men in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)
- 44% of hospital consultant episodes for malignant neoplasm of brain were for women in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)
- 34% of hospital consultant episodes for malignant neoplasm of brain required emergency hospital admission in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)
- more statistics...»
Organs Affected by Brain cancer:
Organs and body systems related to Brain cancer include:
Name and Aliases of Brain cancer
Main name of condition: Brain cancer
Class of Condition for Brain cancer: cancer
Other names or spellings for Brain cancer:
Brain Tumor, Cancer of the brain, Neural cancer
Brain tumor, Intracranial tumor, Brain tumour
Source - Diseases Database
Brain tumour, Brain tumor
Source - WordNet 2.1
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