What Is the Connection Between Brain Cancer and Headaches?

Brain tumors are the most common tumors in childhood, and the incidence of malignant diseases is second only to leukemia.

Pediatric brain tumors

Clinical manifestations of pediatric brain tumors vomiting, headache: younger children often show irritability, or hit their head with their hands. The skull is enlarged. Walking instability: Many tumors occur in the cerebellum. Squint or eyeballs cannot be looked up: commonly known as "opposing eyes" or "cross-eyed eyes". Eyes crooked. Neck rebellion or torticollis: Raise your head and lower jaw to the chest when lying down. Sometimes the child's neck is tilted to a certain position to be comfortable, which is a sign of a cerebellar tumor.

Chinese name: Pediatric brain tumors

Foreign name: Infantile brain tumor
Clinical manifestation: Vomiting, headache

Overview of Pediatric Brain Tumor Diseases

Brain tumors are the most common tumors in childhood, and the incidence of malignant diseases is second only to leukemia.

Disease description

The disease can occur at all ages, but the peak of the disease is 5-8 years old. A variety of factors affect the occurrence of brain tumors. The pathogenesis of certain brain tumors may be related to the deletion or mutation of specific genes. For example, all gliomas have a specific gene deletion on chromosome 17p. Gene loss. Another example is meningioma and chromosome 10, and medulloblastoma is associated with partial deletion of 17p chromosome.

Pediatric brain tumors have their own and physiological characteristics, so they are also unique in the treatment of pediatric brain tumors. In order to obtain good results, comprehensive active treatment is important

Clinical symptoms of pediatric brain tumors

Developmental short or centripetal obesity: For example, a teenager is only 7 to 8 years old, and sometimes the trunk-based obesity occurs when the child is a teenager. At this time, we should be alert to the possibility of craniopharyngioma. Drink more and drink more urine: Children who have been diagnosed with "diabetes insipidus" for a long time are often seen in outpatient clinics. They are diagnosed with germ cell tumor on the saddle due to vision loss or even blindness. Seizures. Precocious puberty: 90% of teratomas in the pineal region are boys. fever. ^[1]

Pediatric brain tumor symptoms and signs

Most of them present a chronic or subacute progressive clinical course, and their clinical manifestations can be classified into cranial types as intracranial hypertension and tumor focal symptoms:

Intracranial hypertension symptoms in children with brain tumors

These include headaches, vomiting, and papillary edema. Babies do not suffer from headaches, which are mainly manifested by full anterior palate, cracked cranial sutures, enlarged head circumference, and broken skull kettlebells. Headaches are intermittent at first, and can be later changed to persistent with paroxysmal exacerbations. Headaches and vomiting are often more severe in the early morning, with a brief reduction in headaches after vomiting. Increased intracranial pressure can also cause secondary optic nerve atrophy and vision loss.

Children often have increased blood pressure, slow pulses, hyperactivity, irritability, and mental retardation. If the pupils are unequal in size or there is a significant disturbance of consciousness, a canopy hiatal hernia should be considered. If there is irregular breathing rhythm and neck stiffness, it is necessary to consider the foramen magnum hernia.

Pediatric brain tumor symptoms and signs

Varies by tumor site and size, common are:

(1) Limb paralysis: Hemisphere tumors in the brain can cause hemiplegia with positive pyramidal tract sign, brain stem tumors cause cross paralysis, that is, neuropathic or subnuclear paralysis of the ipsilateral cranial nerve, and paranuclear paralysis of the opposite limb.

(2) Seizures: seen in tumors in the cerebral hemisphere, showing focal or total seizures.

(3) Ataxia: Staggered gait, often accompanied by nystagmus, are more common in cerebellar tumors.

(4) Loss of vision and visual field defect: cranial angiomas and other sphenoidal tumors compress the optic cross but unfortunately the optic nerve atrophy and visual field loss.

(5) Hypothalamus and pituitary dysfunction: Tumors in the sphenoidal region or the anterior horn of the third ventricle can cause symptoms such as poor growth and development, precocious puberty, urinary complications, or obesity.

Pathophysiology of pediatric brain tumors

There are many types of brain tumors, and the following are common in childhood:

(1) Glioblastoma

The most common include astrocytoma, ependymoma, and glioblastoma multiforme.

(2) Primitive neuroectodermal cell tumor

It belongs to undifferentiated protoblasts, including medulloblastoma and pineoblastoma.

(3) Intracranial tumors in which embryos participate in tissue formation

Such as craniopharyngioma, skin-like and epithelioid cysts.

(4) other

Judging from the sites of occurrence, pediatric brain tumors occur under the sky (rear cranial fossa) and brain midline structures more than adults. According to statistics, 2/3 of children with intracranial tumors occur under the sky. But among children under the age of 2 and over 12, half of the children are under and under the scene. At the same time, 75% of pediatric brain tumors occur in the 3rd and 4th ventricles, at the midline structures such as the optic cross, cerebellar vermis or brainstem.

Pediatric brain tumor diagnostic test

In children with progressively increased intracranial hypertension or related signs and symptoms, attention should be paid to the possibility of intracranial tumors.

Cranial imaging is the key to further diagnosis. Computer computed tomography (CT) can help most children to make a clear diagnosis, but the tumor in the posterior cranial fossa area is not as clear as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) due to overlapping interference with skull base bone shadows. The latter is clearer than CT imaging and has a clear intra-brain anatomy. Therefore, the diagnosis of midline structures and posterior cranial fossa lesions has outstanding advantages, but the display of calcification and bone is not as good as CT.

Other examinations: X-ray film of the skull: You can know whether there is cranial suture separation, cranial plate branch pressure traces and other signs of increased cranial pressure. You can also see tumor calcification spots or enlargement of the saddle area. Lumbar puncture: It is mainly used for the identification of endogenous infectious diseases, but those with significantly increased intracranial pressure are at risk of inducing cerebral hernia. Lumbar puncture should be considered after the intracranial pressure is appropriately reduced.

Differential diagnosis of brain tumors in children

In some brain tumors, such as children with medulloblastoma or periventricular tumors, cerebrospinal fluid can be mistaken for infectious "leukocytes" due to tumor shedding cells, but careful morphological examination can make a difference. Some children with brain tumors have been diagnosed with regenerative diagnosis. The previous use of hormones, dehydrating agents, or other symptomatic treatments can temporarily improve the intracranial hypertension or localization performance. Do not be misdiagnosed as other diseases such as intracranial infection. There may be neck resistance when there is a tumor in the posterior cranial fossa or a severe increase in intracranial pressure. Do not mistake the meningeal irritation.

Pediatric brain tumor treatment plan

Intracranial tumors in children are mainly surgically resected.

Pediatric brain tumor surgery

Treatment principles include:

(1) Remove the tumor as much as possible

(2) For those who cannot be completely removed, try to remove the tumor as much as possible to relieve the oppression of important intracranial structures, including restoring the normal polar night circulation and alleviating the internal hypertension, and create conditions for later radiotherapy and chemotherapy. .

(3) Pathological diagnosis of the resected tumor.

Radiation therapy for pediatric brain tumors

Routine adjuvant treatment after surgery. It is mainly used for patients who cannot undergo a complete resection or recurrence after surgery.

Pediatric brain tumor chemotherapy

In principle, it is used in conjunction with radiotherapy after malignant tumor surgery. Also used in the treatment of patients with malignant tumor recurrence.

Pediatric brain tumor diet

Diet side:

20 g of stone calamus, 3-5 trotters, 50 g of shiitake mushrooms, simmer for 40 minutes, eat meat and soup.

Epimedium yam noodles: 100 grams of thin noodles, 20 grams of yam, 15 grams of longan meat, and 15 grams of epimedium. System of law: add Epimedium boiled juice to the residue. Peel and cut the yam and boil it until the yam soup is dried and mashed. In addition, boil the longan meat with water and pour into Epimedium Sauce, season with soy sauce, wine, etc., and pour the yam puree into the boil to serve as noodle soup. Finally, the noodles are cooked in the soup and can be mixed with the soup.