Why are brain tumors still being missed?

ABSTRACT

This retrospective analysis was done on 24 cases of childhood brain tumor. Age, sex, main presenting symptoms and signs and duration between the clinical features and the definitive diagnosis were prescribed. The age of the patients ranged from 2 to 14 years and male to female ratio was 1.41. The main presenting features were symptoms and signs of increased intracranial pressure [54%], changes in personality and behavior [33%] and focal neurological signs [25%]. The common misdiagnoses were migraine [33%], psychogenic headache [21%] and gastritis [17%]. The mean time interval between symptoms and diagnosis was 12 weeks for children younger than 3 years and 8 weeks for children between 3-14 years. In conclusion, pediatricians should be aware of the overall pattern of the clinical presentations of brain tumors in children in order to avoid a delay in diagnosis