NBR: Brain Tumor screening

aloveindy

Right now this makes me mad that no dr ever mentions this to anyone and that the primary physician my dad saw wasn't even intune enough with the signs of brain tumors that he kept saying it was so many other things for about 2 months.  And insurance companies are the PITA to get a MRI ok'd anymore. 

This is an email from a retired neurosurgeon that was a friend of friend and looked at my dad's case, he actually invented one of the procedure they know do on smaller tumors called the Gamma Knife.

 The sad part of this is that his tumor was diagnosed many years too late. However, these typically do not produce symptoms until they are far advanced and starting to show early signs of malignancy ("anaplastic" changes). The only way to have found this sooner would have been to have an MRI years ago; that would have found the tumor when it was much smaller, localized to a defined area, not yet malignant and potentially curable. In fact people like your brother are precisely the type of people we (the Brain Tumor Foundation) are trying to help with our Early Detection campaign (see https://www.roadtoearlydetection.com) by offering free MRIs to anyone who wants one (like mammography for the brain). Sadly, however, when these tumors start producing symptoms, the overwhelming majority are incurable in spite of all the treatments we now have.

 

 

lemen99

One of my best friend's mother had a brain tumor at about age 40 ish? I wonder if she would qualify for free screenings? I don't know much about it.  Anyone qualifies for a free screen?

MrsOzzy

Yikes..sorry you are going through this.  I work for a neurosurgeon, so I can relate to what you are saying.  Yes, insurance companies are a PITA when it comes to getting a preauth for a MRI--esp if the primary doctor is ordering.  Most insurance companies these days want the testing to come from the specialty doctor  (but not all).   The unfortunate part is that primary doctors don't know all of the symptoms of brain tumors mainly because the symptoms can be related to other things.  Insurance companies also want other things (ex: medications, other testing that's not as expensive) to be considered first.