Brain tumor is one of the most common cancers in children. About 80 of the 300 children each year, cancer has a brain tumor. But there are many different types of brain tumors are also treated differently.
Most
brain tumors in children not spread further by metastases, but grows only on one place. The treatment is to remove the tumor. Many children are good, but some may have more or less severe side effects of the treatment. The side effects depend on where in the brain or the rest of the central nervous system tumor is and what treatment the child receives.
Brain Tumor in Children symptoms
Some children may have had headache or vomiting often and inexplicably, for example in the morning when they wake up. Other children may just have been very tired for a shorter or longer period of time and found it difficult to keep up with everyday life or in school. Symptoms in young children may be that they are late in development and seem to feel ill, have difficulty eating or have other problems that lead to start examining the child. Symptoms can vary a lot depending on the child's age and where the tumor is located.
If a doctor suspects that your symptoms may be due to cancer, the child will do a CT scan or an MRI scan. Young children may need to be put to sleep with general anesthesia before the investigations as they have to lie perfectly still. The surveys do not hurt. CT scan takes only a few minutes. An MRI scan takes longer and can be for those who are awake perceived as strenuous because of the camera allows much.
Most commonly, the tumor is removed by surgery. Sometimes doctors need to first take a sample, called a biopsy from the tumor to be completely sure what kind of tumor it is.
Before the surgery, the family and the child meet the doctor who will perform the operation, and that tells you how it will go. After surgery, the doctor assesses whether any further treatment or not, depending on what kind of tumor it is and where it is located, if the entire tumor could be removed or not, and the child's age. Further treatment can sometimes be a new operation, radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Some children have a combination of several treatments.
Treating a growing
brain leads to various forms of side effects for most children, although adverse reactions can sometimes be small. The main reason for side effects, except the tumor itself, the radiation treatment. Some children may be quite severe side effects that can affect the life for a long time. A common side effect is that the levels of various hormones are affected so that the child, for example, grows more slowly after treatment. It is also common for children to get an impaired locomotion and even learning ability can be affected. Some of the follow-up care after treatment involves giving the child support and help to develop as well as possible.
All children must go on after checks quite often for several years, partly to discover if the
Brain Tumors in Children disease comes back, partly to see how the body and the development work after treatment. If you have had radiation therapy need to be monitored for life, but with varying time intervals.