The relationship between brain cancer and epilepsy

Brain cancer can be divided into two categories: primary and secondary. Primary brain cancer can occur in brain tissue, meninges, cranial nerves, pituitary gland, residual embryonic tissue of blood vessels, etc., while secondary brain cancer refers to metastatic tumors formed by the metastasis of malignant tumors in other parts of the body or invasion of the brain.

The incidence of epilepsy in brain cancer patients is 18% to 30%, and clinically, about 10% of brain cancer patients have epileptic seizures as the first symptom. The forms of epileptic seizures include generalized clonic seizures, focal motor seizures, psychomotor seizures, and grand mal seizures combined with other forms of seizures.

Studies have found that the location of brain cancer is related to the incidence of epilepsy. Epilepsy is most likely to occur when the cancer occurs in the frontal lobe, followed by the temporal lobe and parietal lobe. In addition, the nature of brain cancer is also a factor that affects the incidence of epilepsy. Reports indicate that the incidence of epilepsy caused by oligodendroglioma is the highest, followed by astrocytoma, and then meningioma. The location of brain cancer is related to the form of epilepsy. Reports suggest that, except for the temporal lobe and occipital lobe, tumors in other parts of the brain can cause systemic seizures, among which the frontal lobe is the most common; localized motor seizures are commonly found in the central parietal lobe, followed by the frontoparietal and parietal-occipital regions, but not in other parts; psychomotor seizures are common in the temporal lobe, frontotemporal region, or temporo-occipital region.