Brain Cancer Awareness Month

May is Brain Cancer Awareness Month. The color is grey.

Brain cancer affects about 5000 children and adolescents annually, making them the most common solid tumor in children (x). Brain tumors in children are often discovered due to signs of increased intracranial pressure, such as headaches, vision changes, or differences in mental state. Brain tumors can be malignant (cancer) or benign (non-cancerous). They are also classified as to whether they are primary (started in the brain) or metastatic (started elsewhere and metastasized to the brain).

Gliomas are a common type of brain cancer, with the most common sub-type being astrocytoma. Astrocytomas are graded and grade four is what is known as glioblastoma. DIPG (diffuse intrapontine glioma) is also a type of glioma, specifically one that occurs on the brain stem. DIPG, accounting for 10-20% of childhood brain tumors, has no cure, and is the largest cause of pediatric death due to primary brain tumor (x, x). 

Other types of brain tumors in children include medulloblastomas (15% of pediatric brain tumors), craniopharyngiomas, ATRT (atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor), and germ cell tumors (x).

Grey ribbon on dark grey background that reads Brain Cancer Awareness Month


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Viral Therapy

    Viral therapy is a novel approach to treating cancers.  Infectious shells (viruses) are altered so that instead of causing illness, they fight it from the inside. Because of it's broad applicability, viral therapy shows promise in treating cancer. Read more about viral therapy: Columbus Ohio PubMed review of viral therapy Nationwide Hospital      There are many more articles on Pubmed that discuss various uses of viral therapy and oncolytic viruses. The abstracts are almost always free, and many articles are available through resources at local schools and public libraries.  Happy reading!
Read more

Common Types of Childhood Cancer

 I'm going to do some posts that give readers a background on childhood cancer throughout the year. My goal is to do at least a few related posts every month, for sure the awareness days and months, and then some other information, news, etc.  First, let's dive in to what types of cancers occur in children. There are many types of childhood cancer, hundreds in fact, especially when you consider subtypes. But which are the most common? In order of most to least common, by percent of childhood cancers, they are: Leukemias - 31% Brain and spinal tumors - 26% Lymphomas - 10% Soft tissue sarcomas - 7% Neuroblastoma - 6% Kidney tumors - 5% Bone tumors - 4% Germ cell tumors - 3% Retinoblastoma - 3% Liver tumors - 2% Other cancers - 4% According to the Children's Cancer and Leukemia Society from the UK via MacMillan Cancer Support ( x ). All childhood cancer is considered rare, with only a few hundred per million diagnosed annually. But if you add that up over the span of a childho...
Read more

Vision Board

Image
 My county library is probably one of the most awesome library systems (I am super biased though) and actually is one of the busiest systems in the country. I love the system dearly. I love going to their events and often bring along a friend. For the first week of the year, I brought her to our newest library building for a Vision Boards workshop. I didn't think we would spend the whole hour and a half, but sure enough, we didn't roll out until just before the end of the workshop. I spent a lot of time combing through the magazines, picking just the perfect images and text for my board. I focused on my hobbies, especially cooking, things I want to do this year. I unfortunately didn't include a lot of art items, just based on what the magazines had, but also got a lot of cool foodie stuff and them some other pretty things.  Overall, I don't have one concrete vision for 2024. I have some resolutions, sure, and I have my goals. But I'm trying not to set the bar too hi...
Read more