It is the seat of our intelligence. It is where all our thoughts, imagination, and dreams originate from. It is what gives us the power to plan, reason, communicate, and feel. It controls our heartbeat, breathing, temperature, and blood pressure. In fact, it controls and coordinates all our physical and mental faculties. All these are accomplished by an amazing organ which makes up just 2 percent of the human body’s total mass – the human brain.

Since it is such a vital organ, when something goes wrong with it, it can have devastating effects on us. One of the things that can and does strike the brain is a brain tumor. Here is an account of the various types of brain tumors.

The brain can be affected by tumors that can be benign or malignant, and primary or secondary. Gliomas are the most common types of primary tumors which start in the glial cells of the brain. The various types of gliomas are brain stem glioma and astrocytoma. The other types of tumors of the brain that don’t originate in the glial cells are meningioma, medulloblastoma, schwannoma, and germ cell tumor.

Benign and Malignant Brain Tumors

Brain tumors can either be benign, which means non-cancerous, or malignant, which means cancerous.

Benign Brain Tumors:

* There are no cancer cells in benign brain tumors
* Benign tumors can usually be removed
* Once removed, they rarely grow back
* The tissues around benign tumors are not invaded by the cells from the tumors
* The cells from benign tumors do not spread to any other part of the body
* Benign tumors can grow and put pressure on sensitive parts of the brain, resulting in causing serious problems
* Benign tumors in the brain can therefore be life threatening
* Although rare, but benign brain tumors can sometimes become malignant

Malignant Brain Tumors

* There are no cancer cells in benign brain tumors
* Malignant brain tumors have cancerous cells in them
* Generally being more serious, malignant brain tumors can be life threatening
* Malignant tumors usually grow very swiftly and invade or crowd the surrounding brain tissue
* Although it occurs rarely, but cancer cells can sometimes break off from a cancerous brain tumor and spread to various parts of the brain, or to the spinal cord, and sometimes to the other parts of the body too
* When cancer spreads, it is known as metastasis

Primary and Secondary Brain Tumors

Primary brain tumors are those that originate in the tissue of the brain. They are named according to the part of the brain or the type of cells where they originate. Secondary brain tumors, on the other hand, originate in some other part of the body. Cancer which spreads to the brain from some other part of the body is quite different from a cancer that originates in the brain. Doctors call cancers that spread to the brain from other parts of the body, such as the breast or lung, a metastatic tumor or secondary brain tumor. Secondary brain tumors are far more common than tumors that originate in the brain. Read more…