Treatment for Brain Cancers

The term "brain cancer" refers to a group of neoplasms that originate in the brain tissues and each of which has a unique biological makeup, prognosis, and course of treatment. For instance, lymphomas and meningiomas are two neoplasms that develop from the parenchyma of the brain. The histology of the tumors and the cells that cause them are used to categorize them. The central nervous system tumors have been divided by the World Health Organization into at least seven types. These cancers include, among others, metastatic, neuroepithelial, paraspinal, meningeal, and germ cell tumors (Strong et al 102). However, despite the origin of various tumor cells in the brain, their clinical presentation and diagnosis are the same. Fortunately, the brain tumors are the lowest incidence compared to other types of cancer, representing about 1.4%. But still, are considered among the most aggressive and which contributes to a mortality rate of at least 60%. The victims of this condition have the lowest survival rate among the other cancer forms. The neuroepithelial structures the most significant proportion of the brain tumors morbidity and mortality cases. The use of alcohol, tobacco, head trauma, exposure to radiation, and allergies are among the risk factors for brain cancers. The use of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation are the dominant treatment option for cancer cells, and the paper shall focus on the treatment of brain cancers.



Methods and materials

The research obtained it information by performing a metanalysis of 10t peer-reviewed journal articles from various databases. The articles that were used in the study focused on the treatment of brain tumors either by identifying an individual treatment method or by identifying the various treatment that was effective on various types of brain tumors. The treatment modalities explained in the sources that were used revealed how to test for its efficacy was established by indicating the number of participants during the clinical trials. The first sources reveal different types of tumors and identify the effective treatment mechanism. The treatment for Medulloblastomas identified was chemotherapy while for the meningiomas was surgery (Strong et al 102). The second sources revealed the Curcumin found in the turmeric to be effective in treating brain tumors. The third source identified surgery and radiation as the important treatment options for the tumors of the central nervous system. The fourth source focus on the treatment of the brain tumors by the 3Es process that is induced by the immune system. The first E represented equilibrium, the second is equilibrium, and the last one escapes. The fifth sources recognized the contribution of nuclear medicine with a particular focus on positron emission tomography for the handing of the brain tumor. One of these techniques is the F-fluorodeoxyglucose help in the revealing of the prognosis and distinguishing the malignant from the non-malignant cerebral lymphoma. The sixth source focused on developing chemotherapeutic doxorubicin through the epidermal growth factor receptor. The study performed its clinical trials by using doxorubicin which had been loaded with minicells. The seventh article specified on the treatment effect of immunotherapy and tumor treating fields on Glioblastoma, other than surgery and chemotherapy among other techniques. The eight source elaborated on various types of tumors, and for each, it proposed treatment. For example, radiation therapy was considered effective for the treatment of pituitary tumors.

Additionally, the metastases tumors are treated by the use of stereotactic radiosurgery; the same was done for the rest of brain tumors identified in the article. The ninth sources specialized in establishing the effective treatment for the metastatic brain tumors. The study identified radiation and surgery as the reliable techniques to address the challenge. The tenth source focused on treating the complications that come with a brain tumor as a mechanism for dealing cancer. Some of the complications identified were seizures and mental disorders, whose treatments were considered to have a tremendous effect on the development of brain cancers. The anti-epileptic drugs and corticosteroids were deemed to be effective in slowing the prognosis of the brain tumors as the patients treated the related side effects. The above sources revealed the available treatment methods for the brain tumor cases which are considered the fate of all the cancers that attach human beings. Further details were shared in the discussion section below concerning the content of the treatment modalities.

Discussion

In the year 2015, almost 70,000 cases were expected to be diagnosed for the primary central nervous system tumors. About 25000 of these cases were expected to be malignant conditions. Despite these huge number, it is considered that the incidences of brain tumors are the lowest in all cases of cancer diagnosed. Even so, the mortality rate for patients with these conditions has highest mortality rate at least at 60%. The growth of tumors take some time and patients presents with signs at later stages as the pathogens continue to grow and cause intracranial pressure. Some of the symptoms include vomiting, seizures, and headaches among other signs (Schiff et al. 488). Imaging is one of the techniques used to diagnose the kind of tumors to establish the appropriate treatment mechanism.

During treatment of the brain tumors, the risk of surgery is assessed by considering the considering the path of reception process (Strong et al. 102). Therefore if the risk is too high chemotherapy or radiation therapy is considered for treatment of the conditions. In a different study, the rate of primary tumors affecting the central nervous system was at 27 people in a population of 100000. Glioblastoma is the brain tumor with the highest incidence at almost four people in a population of 100,000 which is slightly above 15% of these types of cancers and also more than 45% of the malignant tumors. Another tumor of the Central Nervous system is the meningiomas which are grade one tumor and hence slow growth and can be treated using surgical techniques (Ninh, Mohit, and Ha 2). Furthermore, a treatment sourced from turmeric, curcumin was identified to have a therapeutic impact on these cancer cells and their rapid growth. Curcumin is located at the rhizome of the turmeric which is considered among the ginger family. The plant has been used in the complementary and alternative medicine in India and chine Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine respectively for the treatment of liver and skin disorders among other (Klinger, Neil, and Sandeep 5). Due to its antioxidant and inflammatory nature have made it be considered useful for the treatment of not only Alzheimer’s and brain tumors. Under the microscopic observation the grades of a brain tumor can be determined.

Additionally, the tumor treating fields can be used together with immunotherapy to deal with glioblastoma tumors (Davis 10).Four grades are used to classify the brain tumors found in adults. The grade one tumors develop slowly and do not spare on the nearby tissues. Therefore such cancer can be extracted surgically and health the tumor entirely. The second grade despite growing showily, it has the potential to spread to the other tissues. Such tumors that can be treated by using high energy x-rays which is a radiotherapy technique (Manoj et al. 469). The third-grade tumors proliferate to the surrounding tissues and appear different from the nearby cells. These can be treated by also using radiation therapy. The last grade represents aggressive growing cells that seem different from the regular cells. These tumors are difficult to manage, but a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy can be applied. Additionally, the immunotherapeutic technique is also reliable in the treatment of the brain tumors. This method is useful where the immune system has been empowered to avoid information that is considered genetically foreign. It also works by improving the accuracy of the immune system for a possible specific and adjustment of the human physiology to deal with brain tumors. This mechanism works in three phases that are denoted by 3Es. The first E is elimination which represents the surveillance done by the immune system to detect foreign bodies. The second is Equilibriums which further the elimination activity and detect the tumor that escaped surveillance to be on further suppression. The third level is escaping where those that were not detected form tumors although slow in progress, they grow and become dangerous with time as the immunosurveillance is compromised since the resultant cells appear like the normal cells. Therefore treatment focusing on empowering the elimination and equilibrium mechanism of the immune system is effective in the treatment of the brain tumors (Yashin and Medyanik 2). Fortunately, the positron emission tomography can be used in the diagnosis the prognosis and help determine the treatment of the tumors. For instance, F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography help in understanding the differentiation of the lymphomas which arise from the non-malignant lesions. Once the brain of the tumors have been established the treatment can be determined in this context either stereotactic or conformal therapy can be applied (Herholz et al. 10). Various chemotherapy techniques are currently available for the treatment of brain cancers, but the challenges are the toxicity of the treatment. This is a concern since it leaves the patents treating other severe side effects such as liver destructions, and hence scholars have been working to discover a treatment which is effective yet with less toxicity to the users. For this reason, doxorubicin through the epidermal growth receptors was considered through a clinical trial using 17 dogs in a study (MacDiarmid et al. 1). The findings indicated that once the drug was administered randomly on various brain tumors the prognosis of cancer was slow and other tumors at lower grades stopped growing. The metastatic tumors have complications such as the overshadowing the brain neoplasms which increases the challenges of handling many types of cancers. However, this condition can be prevented by treating the asymptomatic elisions before they become tumors. This can be achieved through surgery and radiation therapy (Owonikoko et al. 205). Similarly, management of the complication of brain rumors such as seizures and mental disorders is key to controlling the cancers from developing adverse effects on the individual. Medication such as antidepressants and antiepileptic are effective in handling altering the prognosis of the tumors.

Conclusion and recommendation

The incidence of brain tumors is the least among other types of cancers, but its mortality rate is the highest. The tumors are diverted into four grades, grade one and two grow slowly and appear as normal tissues, the second and third grades grow quickly and aggressively respectively and appear different from normal cells. The first and the second can be treated by surgery while the third can be treated using radiation or chemotherapy and the last grade which is difficult to treat applying all treatments in a systematic manner increases the chances of survival. Since the conventional brain tumor treatment has been failing to provide effective treatment for all cancers of the brain considering alternative and complementary medicine such the curcumin from turmeric can improve the therapy for this condition.











































Works cited

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Herholz, Karl, et al. "Brain tumors." Seminars in nuclear medicine. Vol. 42. No. 6. WB Saunders, 2012.

Klinger, Neil V., and Sandeep Mittal. "Therapeutic potential of curcumin for the treatment of brain tumors." Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity 2016 (2016).

Manoj, L., et al. "Review of brain and brain cancer treatment." International Journal of Pharma and Bio Sciences 2 (2011): 468-477.

MacDiarmid, Jennifer A., et al. "Targeted doxorubicin delivery to brain tumors via minicells: proof of principle using dogs with spontaneously occurring tumors as a model." PloS one 11.4 (2016): e0151832.

Ninh, B. D., P. Mohit, and S. N. Ha. "Treatments of Common Brain Tumors." J Surgery Emerg Med 1.1 (2017).

Owonikoko, Taofeek K., et al. "Current approaches to the treatment of metastatic brain tumours." Nature reviews Clinical oncology 11.4 (2014): 203-222.

Strong, M. J., et al. "Brain Tumors: Epidemiology and Current Trends in Treatment." Journal of Brain Tumors &Neurooncol 1 (2015): 102.

Schiff, David, et al. "Medical management of brain tumors and the sequelae of treatment." Neuro-oncology 17.4 (2014): 488-504.

Yashin, К. S., and I. А. Medyanik. "Brain cancer immunotherapy." Современные технологии в медицине 6.4 (eng) (2014).