The ABTA Online Seminar on Brain Tumor Causes

Why me? What did I do wrong? What caused my (or my loved one’s) brain tumor?

I thought that maybe I got mine from falling on some black ice and whacking my head on the sidewalk. But maybe, just maybe, it was all those annual dental X-rays I got growing up?

Other common worries include the effects of allergies, antihistamines and cell phones.

In this free, online American Brain Tumor Association webinar, Ms. Jill S. Barnholtz-Sloan, PhD, Associate Director for Bioinformatics at Case Western Reserve University discusses all the statistics and evidence surrounding the incidence and possible cause of different types of brain tumors.

Like almost everything else associated with cancer and brain tumors, the answers aren’t particularly clear-cut.

At the same time, I want to make sure all of you know about this webinar, so here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8lG8nWwHz0&feature=youtu.be

John

FYI – Dr. Barnholtz-Sloan uses precise and somewhat complex medical terms in her talk, which can be off-putting to some.

ABTA “Causes and Risk Factors Webinar”

Why did I get this #%*&# tumor? That’s a pretty normal reaction to learning that you have some evil entity living inside your skull and wreaking havoc with your brain, cognitive abilities, personality and everything else that makes you, you.

Often the answers you get are pretty vague and not particularly helpful.

That said, here’s an ABTA webinar that I believe will be particularly helpful: “Causes and Risk Factors of Brain Tumors”: http://www.inspire.com/groups/american-brain-tumor-association/discussion/causes-and-risk-factors-webinar/?msg_activity=recom_recorded

The blurb on the Inspire website says:

Join us online Wednesday, 2/12/2014 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Central time as we present another ABTA webinar: Causes and Risk Factors of Brain Tumors.

Concerns about causes of a brain tumor, risk factors, heredity and the environment are normal with a brain tumor diagnosis. This webinar will provide an update on what we know to be some of the causes and risk factors of brain tumors including changes in the chromosomes.

Presented by Jill Barnholtz-Sloan, PhD, associate professor at Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

This webinar includes an online Q & A session with Dr. Barnholtz-Sloan. Click here to register for the free Causes and Risk Factors of Brain Tumors webinar:https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/864687086

ABTA_Jillann

Connections Support Community Group Leader”

Image credit: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/photo_16852608_button-webinar.html'>so47 / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

Brain Tumors, Smoking Guns & High Blood Pressure

If you smoke for thirty years and then get lung cancer, you don’t have to guess a lot about the cause. If you ask “why did I get this tumor?” the answers to that question, though, are often vague, because there’s not a lot of “smoking guns” for brain tumors. 

According to the American Brain Tumor Association – www.abta.org – meningioma tumors tend to occur in older adults sixty or older and they occur about twice as often in women as in men. As it turns out, I’m not quite that old, but close enough. The ABTA also reports that “Risk factors for meningioma include prior radiation exposure to the head, and a genetic disorder called ‘neurofibroamatosis type 2’.” The report goes on to state that meningiomas occur in people with no risk factors…as I know all too well.

Of course if your head has been exposed to radiation and/or you figure out that you have the genetic disorder named “neurofibroamatosis type 2”, this might increase your blood pressure a tad.

And that could be bad.

Why?

According to a study that tracked 580,000 people for ten years in Austria, Norway and Sweden, and found that “…20% of participants with the highest blood pressure readings were more than twice as likely to later be diagnosed with meningioma or malignant glioma compared with the 20% with the lowest readings” as the Journal of Hypertension.  Given the magnitude of the people tracked and length of the study, I thought it worth bringing to your attention.

 
Here’s a link to the article in The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/21/high-blood-pressure-brain-tumour-risk_n_1162137.html