Brain tumors arise from the normal constituents of the brain and its coverings (meninges). Spinal tumors are considered separately.
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Epidemiology
As a general rule, brain tumors increase in frequency with age, with individual exceptions (e.g. pilocytic astrocytoma, the vast majority of which are found in young patients), and a number of uncommon tumors found in infancy (see brain tumors of infancy). There are few gender differences, except that as a general rule, gliomas are more frequent in men and meningiomas are more frequent in women.
Clinical presentation
Ocular symptoms of intracranial space-occupying lesion are loss of vision, drooping of eyelids, double vision and protrusion of the eyeball. Ocular signs of intracranial space-occupying lesions are papilledema and visual field defect 6.
Pathology
There are numerous individual tumor entities which come under the umbrella term "brain tumor" (see WHO Classification of CNS tumors). They can broadly be divided into:
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neuroepithelial (50% 1)
astrocytoma (44%)
ependymoma (3%)
medulloblastoma (3%)
oligodendroglioma (2%)
meningioma (15%)
metastases (15%)
pituitary tumors (8%)
primary CNS lymphoma (2.5%)
intracranial germ cell tumors 0.4% to 3.4% 4 (around the pineal, third ventricle or suprasellar region)
Another set of figures to ponder 5:
overall incidence: 5-13 cases per 100,000
incidence in children: 2-4 cases per 100,000
80% of all intracranial tumors are supratentorial
40% are metastases
70% of tumors in 1-year-olds to adolescents are in the posterior fossa
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