Symptoms:

The specific symptoms depend on the tumor's size, location, degree of invasion, and related swelling. Headaches, seizures, weakness in one part of the body, and changes in the person's mental functions are most common.

Symptoms may include:

• Decerebrate posture
• Decorticate posture
• Decreased coordination, clumsiness, falls
• Decreased sensation of a body area
• Double vision, decreased vision
• Emotional instability, rapid emotional changes
• Fever (sometimes)
• General ill feeling
• Headache -- a persistent headache that is new for the person, worse on awakening
• Hearing loss
• Loss of memory, impaired judgment
• Personality and behavior changes
• Positive Babinski's reflex
• Reduced alertness
• Seizures that are new for the person
• Speech difficulties
• Vomiting -- possibly accompanied by nausea; more severe in the morning
• Weakness, lethargy
• Weakness of a body area

• Absent menstruation
• Breathing, absent temporarily
• Confusion
• Dysfunctional movement
• Eye abnormalities
  • Eyelid drooping
  • Pupils different sizes
  • Uncontrollable movements
• Facial paralysis
• Hand tremor
• Hiccups
• Impaired sense of smell
• Obesity
• Swallowing difficulty
• Tongue problems
• Uncontrollable movement
• Unusual or strange behavior

Signs and tests:

A doctor can often identify signs and symptoms that are specific to the location of the tumor. Some tumors may not show symptoms until they are very large and cause a rapid decline in the person's mental functions. Other tumors have symptoms that develop slowly.

Most brain tumors increase pressure within the skull and compress brain tissue because of their size and weight.

The following tests may confirm the presence of a brain tumor and identify its location:

• CT scan of the head
• EEG
• Examination of tissue removed from the tumor during surgery or CT-guided biopsy (may confirm the exact type of tumor)
• Examination of the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) may reveal cancerous cells
• MRI of the head