What are the symptoms of brain tumor edema?

In fact, brain tumor edema mainly refers to the edema that occurs in brain tumor patients. This is a common symptom. It also means that the patient's condition is relatively serious, so we must pay attention to understanding the cause. There is also preoperative edema or postoperative brain edema, which should be distinguished and understood.

1. Edema before surgery

Tumors compress the surrounding brain tissue or block cerebral venous return, resulting in increased venous pressure, intracranial congestion, cerebrospinal fluid circulation and absorption disorders, and tumor biological toxicity, which affect the brain tissue around the tumor, damage or destroy the blood-brain barrier, increase the permeability of the blood vessel wall, and produce localized cerebral edema.

2. Postoperative cerebral edema

The richer the blood supply and the larger the tumor, the more veins will be destroyed during the resection process, and the degree of edema after surgery may be severe. Moreover, since the tumor compresses the brain tissue for a long time, the brain tissue perfusion pressure increases after the tumor is removed, and the postoperative reactive edema is more severe than other intracranial tumors. Cerebral edema peaks 2 to 3 days after surgery. Patients with meningiomas who have high VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) levels in immunohistochemistry will also have more obvious edema after surgery.

3. Radioactive damage?

For patients with brain tumors, one of the causes of cerebral edema may be radiation damage, which is one of the side effects of radiotherapy for brain tumors.

4. Targeted treatment can take the following measures:

The head can be elevated 15° to 30° to facilitate cerebral venous return and reduce cerebral edema. Use dehydrating agents promptly and in sufficient amounts on time, and accurately record urine volume after taking the medicine. Dehydration treatment should not be delayed due to blood volume replenishment, as this will aggravate cerebral edema and cause brain herniation. If necessary, surgery can be used to reduce intracranial pressure.