Brain tumors

The most frequent brain tumors are those that come from tumors of other locations, that is, metastatic. Approximately 30% of cancer patients develop brain metastases.

In frequency, it is followed by primary brain tumors, their common name is gliomas, although within them there are many types and grades. They are approximately 50% of brain tumors.

The treatment of brain tumors, as expected, depends on many factors, such as size, number of lesions, the general condition of the patient, and above all the location, since depending on this last factor surgery could relieve symptoms or worsen them. However, treatment with surgery is almost always necessary and there are different techniques that improve the safety of surgery, such as the use of the neuronavigator or neurophysiological monitoring. With surgery, a sample of the lesion is also obtained, which allows an accurate histological diagnosis.

In the case of some metastases and high-grade gliomas, it is necessary to complete the treatment with other techniques such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

There are tumors that can be inside the skull, without necessarily originating in the brain itself. This is the case of meningiomas, the most frequent intracranial tumor, is approximately 36% of all intracranial tumors is usually benign in more than 95% of cases. The definitive treatment and in most cases curative, is surgery and total resection.

Tumors originating in the pituitary gland account for approximately 10% of intracranial tumors, are mostly benign and produce symptoms due to the occupation of the "sella turcica", which is the anatomical site where the pituitary gland is located; These are visual disturbances or symptoms related to excess or defective production of pituitary hormones. The treatment of these tumors depends on the size and type of hormone they produce, this being sometimes purely medical with drugs that slow down the production of certain hormones and secondarily reduce the size of the tumor, or with minimally invasive surgery techniques such as transsphenoidal endoscopy surgery.