As you may have heard, Lions running back Jerome Harrison was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
The way the malignancy was discovered is probably the most fascinating detail of the story. Harrison was supposed to be traded to the Eagles for RB Ronnie Brown this week. While undergoing a physical, an MRI of his head was performed, which is how they found the tumor. What puzzled me the most is that when performing a "routine physical" on someone, you don't usually just randomly MRI their brain. It turns out that Harrison had been suffering recurrent headaches and that's why he got the MRI.
The term "brain tumor" is vague to say the least. First off, a cancer in the brain can either be a primary malignancy or metastasis. A primary malignancy means that this was the site where the cancer originated. Metastasis refers to the cancer showing up in the brain as a result of spreading from another site. The origins of brain metastases are most commonly from melanoma (WEAR SUNSCREEN), lung cancer, genitourinary cancers (e.g. testes, kidney), osteosarcoma (bone) and breast cancer.
Now even presuming that this is a primary brain malignancy, it's still a super vague term. There is a multitude of tumors that can grow in the "brain" region. Sorry, multitude is the wrong word. How about THE LONGEST SHOPPING LIST EVER.
How is it found? Sometimes masses in the brain can cause generalized symptoms as a result of its size and growth alone. Think about it - your brain doesn't like getting pushed on and moved around. General symptoms include headache, seizures, nausea/vomiting, altered level of consciousness and decrease in cognitive function. And these symptoms tend to occur slowly or sporadically over time; they're unlikely just to pop up all of a sudden. Sometimes, the tumor can cause some specific symptoms based on its location - seizures (again), weakness or sensory loss into certain areas of the body, difficulty speaking, or vision problems. Now I know about half of you that are reading this now think you have a brain tumor. Stop it. Far more common things cause all of the above symptoms.
Treatment: neurosurgery. I won't even dare go further into explaining how, when or why some get treated or some don't because ... it's neurosurgery. I do know that size, rate of growth and location all play a role in whether all, some or none of it is operable but that's really all I know.
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