What are the symptoms of brain tumor compressing the optic nerve?

If a brain tumor compresses the optic nerve, the patient will experience progressive vision loss and will also experience dizziness, headaches, and other phenomena. Many people think that these symptoms are caused by eyestrain, but in fact, this may be a sign of a brain tumor, so it needs to be taken seriously and checked actively.

1. Brain tumor patients will experience progressive vision loss, accompanied by dizziness and headaches, which are often mistaken for eyestrain. If the disease is neglected and misdiagnosed, and medical treatment is sought only after blindness, the brain tumor can be removed surgically, but the possibility of restoring vision is very slim.

2. The human eyeball is like a miniature camera, with a cerebral canal and choroid that are like a darkroom; a pupil that is equivalent to an aperture; a lens that has a focusing function; and a retina that is similar to a photosensitive film. When there is a "failure" anywhere in the eye, optic nerve, and visual center, visual impairment will occur. The optic nerve that governs visual conduction has some nerve fibers that cross left and right as they run in the brain, and the surrounding area is a high-incidence site for pituitary brain tumors and craniopharyngiomas. Because the early symptoms of the tumor are not obvious, once the tumor gradually increases, compression of the optic nerve chiasm can cause optic nerve atrophy, leading to a sudden drop in vision or even blindness.

3. In addition to causing progressive vision loss, brain tumors are often accompanied by visual field defects. In order to see the full picture of objects, patients often need to tilt their heads and squint. Headache is one of the main symptoms. If the tumor is located at the intersection of the optic nerves, the pain is often felt in the bilateral temporal, forehead, back of the orbit, and root of the nose, and is a distending pain. If the headache is severe and accompanied by nausea and vomiting, this indicates that the tumor has entered the late stage of increased intracranial pressure. In short, anyone with decreased vision accompanied by the above symptoms should be given high attention, and efforts should be made to achieve early diagnosis and timely surgery to achieve the possibility of partial recovery of vision.