Brain Cancer Symptoms

Brain Cancer Symptoms

Brain is the center of life. All life activities, every details, can only occur through a sophisticated mechanism regulated by the brain. At the same time, brain also must perform thousands of activities at once. All above can be simultaneously implemented because they are regulated by different parts. Yes, brain has many parts that have different functions.

Brain is divided into three parts named a large brain (cerebrum), small brain (cerebellum) and brain stem. Each sections are divided into smaller sections, smaller, and smaller again. Like other parts of the body, brain can be affected by either tumor and cancer. The difference is, if  benign tumors can be harmless for other body parts, but for brain, even benign tumors can be very disturbing and end up as death. Also, cancer from other parts of the body can spread to the brain but brain cancer itself, cannot spread to other body parts.

Brain Cancer Symptoms
Each part of the brain can be affected by tumor (benign) or cancer (malignancy). The most benign tumor can even be very dangerous if it happens on the brain, because it can interfere the brain's function and structure and therefore can damage the central nervous system. The cavity of the skull is a finite space, so any enlargement will cause depression of brain tissue, along with tumor's development. As we know, volume of the cranial cavity is very limited and unlikely to grow, this appears as headache or dizziness as early brain cancer symptom.


Characteristics of brain cancer varies widely, depend on which part of brain that is affected. The most common brain cancer symptom is nauseous and headache. Here are brain cancer symptoms that we should be aware of:

1. Headache, accompanied by vomitus and nausea. 30% of early brain cancer symptoms are headache. It varies from mild to severe and episodic, generally get worse at night and waking in the morning with vomiting because of high intracranial pressure.
2. Decreased awareness 
3. Mental instability and behavioral changes. It can be a mild mental change called psychomotoric asthenia, which only can be felt by close relatives like: irritability, emotional instability, forgetfulness, anxiety, depression, loss of initiative and spontanity. Remember, all former symptoms are progressive and can be found at 65% cases.
4. Speech disturbance
5. Reduced vision
6. Hearing loss
7. Walking imbalance
8. Weakened extremities (upper and lower)
9. Convulsion, etc.

Remember, the list above is only about symptoms. Even if you experience one or more symptoms, it doesn't directly means you are affected by brain cancer. To make sure, you should contact a neurologist and undergo further examination, especially head CT-scan, MRI, etc.