The Most Common Symptoms Of A Brain Tumor

Seizures

As one of the most common and first symptoms to appear, seizures are experienced by approximately sixty percent of patients who are diagnosed with a brain tumor and will experience at least one, either before or after their diagnosis. The brain contains billions of nerve cells which control the way we think, feel, speak, and move, and these tiny nerves do this by passing electrical signals or messages to each other. In patients with a brain tumor, seizures may be caused by the cells that surround the tumor that has developed abnormally or can be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain as a result of the tumor.

Epilepsy is connected to brain tumors, as a specific type of epilepsy exists as a result of a tumor, known simply as brain tumor-related epilepsy (BTRE). A patient is more likely to experience a seizure or develop BTRE if the tumor is slow-growing and low grade, however, this doesn’t mean the patient will have a seizure. Also, an individual is more likely to develop BTRE if the tumor is in one of the lobes of the cerebrum (cerebral cortex) or the meninges, which are the membranes that cover and protect the brain and spinal cord, in comparison to a tumor that is deep in the brain, in the brainstem, or cerebellum.

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