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Monday's Health Report: Brain tumors can affect quality of life as well as length of life
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BATON ROUGE — A brain tumor can significantly affect a person's quality of life, not just length of life.
There are different types of brain tumors and ways to treat them that a healthcare team may consider.
Primary brain tumors are those that originate in the brain, like glioblastoma, meningioma or others. Metastatic brain tumors originate in other parts of the body but migrate to the brain or spinal cord.
"Patients that present with brain tumors can present sometimes with a long history of headaches, and the headaches, instead of improving or instead of being up and down, they keep getting worse and worse and worse," neurosurgeon Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa says.
Seizures and sudden collapse are other symptoms of brain tumors that warrant immediate medical attention.
Diagnosis requires brain imaging with an MRI brain scan and an exam by a neurologist or neurosurgeon.
Quinones-Hinojosa says treatment can include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy or a combination. For surgical removal of a brain tumor, he explains that the patient may remain awake, depending on the location of the tumor and symptoms.
"If they're near speech or motor function, we can map those cases. We can keep the patients awake and do very significant and safe resections," he said.
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