Interventions for the management of fatigue in adults with a primary brain tumour.

Background: Fatigue is a common and disabling symptom in people with a primary brain tumour (PBT). The effectiveness of interventions for treating clinically significant levels of fatigue in this population is unclear. This is an updated version of the original Cochrane Review published in Issue 4, 2016.

Clinical Debate: long-term antiepileptic drug prophylaxis in patients with glioma.

Patients with primary brain tumors often experience seizures, which can be the presenting symptom or occur for the first time at any point along the illness trajectory. In addition to causing morbidity, seizures negatively affect independence and quality of life in other ways, for example, by leading to loss of driving privileges. Long-term therapy with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) is the standard of care in brain tumor patients with seizures, but the role of prophylactic AEDs in seizure-naive patients remains controversial.

Acute diffuse cerebral vasospasm as a complication of endoscopic resection of a colloid cyst: a case report.

Background: Endoscopic resection can be used for removing colloid cysts as a substitute for open craniotomy. Cerebral vasospasm, a possible complication of the craniotomy procedure, has not been reported as a complication of endoscopic removal of colloid cysts.

Case Description: A 58-year-old man developed the worst headache of his life.

Systemic administration of local anesthetic agents to relieve neuropathic pain.

Background: Lidocaine, mexiletine, tocainide, and flecainide are local anesthetics which give an analgesic effect when administered orally or parenterally. Early reports described the use of intravenous lidocaine or procaine to relieve cancer and postoperative pain. Interest reappeared decades later when patient series and clinical trials reported that parenteral lidocaine and its oral analogs tocainide, mexiletine, and flecainide relieved neuropathic pain in some patients.

Phase 1 lead-in to a phase 2 factorial study of temozolomide plus memantine, mefloquine, and metformin as postradiation adjuvant therapy for newly diagnosed glioblastoma.

Background: Repurposed memantine, mefloquine, and metformin have putative anticancer activity. The objective of this phase 1 study was to determine the maximum tolerated doses (MTDs) of combinations of these agents with temozolomide (TMZ).

Methods: Adults with newly diagnosed glioblastoma who completed chemoradiation were eligible.

GBM skin metastasis: a case report and review of the literature.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common type of malignant tumor found in the brain, and acts very aggressively by quickly and diffusely infiltrating the surrounding brain parenchyma. Despite its aggressive nature, GBM is rarely found to spread extracranially and develop distant metastases. The most common sites of these rare metastases are the lungs, pleura and cervical lymph nodes.

Ischemic stroke in patients with gliomas at The University of Texas-M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Patients with gliomas are at risk of cerebrovascular accidents (CVA) with potential consequences on survival, function, and local tumor control. Our objective was to provide information about CVA in patients with gliomas and to estimate survival in this group. We reviewed all adult glioma patients with ischemic CVA at the University of Texas-M.

Corticosteroid sensitivity in gliomatosis cerebri delays diagnosis.

Purpose: To describe a patient whose diagnosis of gliomatosis cerebri was delayed for one year due mostly to dexamethasone.

Patients And Methods: A 78-year-old woman was followed in clinic for a year with a brain lesion suspicious but not definitive for glioma, whose clinical course and neuroimaging varied with use of dexamethasone. A first biopsy and MR spectroscopy did not find evidence of malignancy.

Sinking skin flap syndrome in glioblastoma.

Sinking skin flap syndrome (SSFS) is a rare neurological complication in patients with traumatic haemorrhage, stroke or cerebral oedema who undergo decompressive craniectomy to relieve increased intracranial pressure. Hallmark of SSFS is the sinking of the scalp to a plane lower than the edges of the skull defect in the setting of neurological deterioration. Our objective is to report that SSFS can present after small craniotomy without cerebral cortex compression and to share our diagnostic/therapeutic approach.

The CT halo sign in invasive aspergillosis.

In immunocompromised patients, the pulmonary computed tomography halo sign is highly suggestive of angioinvasive aspergillosis. Early recognition may be life-saving.

Imaging mimics of primary malignant tumors of the central nervous system (CNS).

Imaging has become a central part of the evaluation of lesions of the central nervous system. Despite patterns of the appearances of several types of central nervous system malignancies and improving resolution of imaging techniques, there are other processes that can display similar characteristics. Time and again, vascular, inflammatory, and vascular lesions will mimic a neoplastic process, requiring tissue diagnosis.

N-type calcium channel antibody-mediated paraneoplastic limbic encephalitis: a diagnostic challenge.

Background: The etiology of encephalitis presents a diagnostic challenge and often remains a mystery. However, current technological advances using antibodies can enable a definitive diagnosis in cases that would previously have been suspected to be idiopathic or viral encephalitis. Our objective is to show that tonsil neuroendocrine carcinoma can present initially as limbic encephalitis mediated by N-type calcium channel antibodies and to highlight the diagnostic confusion before cancer detection.