The other symptom is that a victim will experience a change in mental capability or individual's distinctive characters. Either the patient or his/her close associates can identify the symptoms independently. The final symptoms are those that helps in location of the tumor as an effect of the pressure exerted on the surrounding areas. They include a large number of symptoms but the locally noted include the weakening of different body parts, which can be on the arms or legs, poor maintenance of balance, memory weakening and in worst cases damaging, visual difficulties, communication difficulties, and a modified kind of sensing. When it involves a stem tumor, it affects the nerve functions that leave the brain at the bottom part (Health Encyclopedia, n.p.).
Diagnosis
During diagnosis, a physician will have interest on the medical past and other examination of the patient and then armed with the information; the physician might advice on additional examination, which can include a head Computer Tomography (CT) scan or a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). From the results obtained, physicians will advice accordingly (Ali-Osman 113).
Treatment
The treatment that a patient receives on brain tumors depends on the type and location of the tumor as well as the victim's condition. In most cases, surgery remains the main method of treating brain tumors, mostly for primary ones. Considering the advancement in current technology concerning imaging, early detections, drugs to reduce swellings, complex organization, high tech anesthetic control, specialized microscopes and surgical equipment, they have increased the efficiency of operations such that these procedures take place with significant safety. For example, the latest surgical equipment will enable the removal of tumors with little if not none brain tissue disturbance. For these cases, an ultrasonic aspirator will enable the breakdown of the tumor such that by suction, the tumor is removed (Ali-Osman 126).
The choice of surgery as the appropriate procedure has different importance. First, surgery can apply...
Other procedures help to reduce pressure exerted by the growth and this will include use of shunts in the fluid vessels of the brain (Schiffer 26). Some surgeries that involve complete removal of the tumor will include the tumors with mild history. For example, such tumors will be the nurofibromas, meningiomas, acoustic schwannomas and low-grade astrocytomas (Health Encyclopedia, n.p.).
There is a procedure known as Gamma knife surgery, which is changing the management of brain disorders. This procedure calls for a patient to put on a helmet that has rounded holes form which gamma radiation is concentrated on to a specified target allowing treatment of the affected cells without much disturbance, if not none to the surrounding cells. Taking up to 40 minutes, the procedure will not call for serious anesthesia. In some cases however, if surgeries do not completely remove the tumor, other older methods of radiation therapy can supplement the procedure like chemotherapy.
In conclusion, brain tumors originate from the brain as primary or secondary tumors, where origin cell type defines the tumor dictating the appropriate kind of treatment. Although a significant number of primary brain tumors, may lack concise causes, symptoms that start as normal ailments but later turn serious help in diagnosis of brain tumors. Then by understanding a patient's medical history and type, location and condition of a patient, appropriate treatment can commence where surgery remains a major form of treatment.
Works cited
Ali-Osman, Francis. Brain tumors. New Jersey, U.S.: Humana Press. 2005. Print.
Health Encyclopedia. Diseases and conditions: Brain tumors. Healthscout.com
1 April 2009. Web. 28 March 2010.
Schiffer, Davide. Brain tumor pathology: current diagnostic hotspots and pitfalls. New York,
US: Springer.
2006. Print.
