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Meningiomas are dangerous, ionising radiation is the only clearly known cause

meningiomas are not anywhere near so universal, and, despite the “benign” designation, can be dangerous, leading to severe disabilities, and, in rare cases, death.

Radiation to the head and neck is the only well-defined cause found so far

No, ‘half of us’ don’t have a brain tumor like Sheryl Crow’s, MSNBC.com 7 June 12  Singer Sheryl Crow recently revealed she had been diagnosed with a meningioma, a type of brain tumor that accounts for nearly 30 percent of brain tumors in the U.S. More than 90 percent of them are benign. NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman reports. By Brian Alexander
When news broke that singer Sheryl Crow has a benign brain tumor called a meningioma, her representative swatted away concern  by saying that “half of us are walking around with [a meningioma] but you don’t really know unless you happen to have an MRI.”
Well, no.
Despite that unnamed representative’s effort to make a brain tumor sound like a pimple, meningiomas are not anywhere near so universal, and, despite the “benign” designation, can be dangerous, leading to severe disabilities, and, in rare cases, death…….

 Recently, medicine, which has focused on treating very deadly brain tumors like gliomas, has realized that it’s been giving benign brain tumors short shrift, so meningiomas have been the subject of renewed scientific interest.

Radiation to the head and neck is the only well-defined cause found so far. A study released last month from UCLA identified 27 cases of meningiomas over a 10-year-period that appear to have arisen following radiation to the head. While such treatments have usually been used to attack other cancers, “in the 1940s and 1950s,” Claus said, “kids were sometimes treated with radiation for all kinds of things, even ringworm, and those kids have a ten-fold increased chance of developing a meningioma.”

A more common source of radiation may also spark meningiomas.

A study by Claus in the April issue of Cancer linked the tumors to dental x-rays. “Over a lifetime, cases were more than twice as likely as controls…to report having ever had a bitewing examination.”…. http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/06/12089291-no-half-of-us-dont-have-a-brain-tumor-like-sheryl-crows?lite

June 8, 2012 - Posted by | 2 WORLD, health

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