Brain tumours

Abstract

Brain tumours are uncommon but not rare. They occur particularly in the young and the middle aged. Rather more than 50 per cent are malignant with poor prognosis in spite of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. However, benign brain tumours can in general be cured. Early diagnosis and treatment are important in diminishing the morbidity and mortality rates in the latter group and in providing better palliative management in the former. Advances in neuroradiology, particularly the development of CT, have made early diagnosis possible, given clinical awareness of the syndromes of brain tumour on the part of the physician. New methods of accurate CT-controlled surgery for glioma have also been introduced. Advances in adjuvant methods of radiotherapy, with radiation sensitizers or interstitial implantation, and of chemotherapy by tailoring the drug regimen to an individual patient and by targeting agents specifically to brain tumour, are being sought while the feasibility of fresh modes of immunotherapy has been tested. These developments hold some hope that results for malignant glioma may improve in the forseeable future.