Essay On Astrocytoma

Astrocytoma is one of the most common brain cancers that rise from astrocytes. Astrocytoma is also referred to as gliomas because they come from glial tissues. Astrocytoma is divided into subdivisions: grade I, a noninfiltrating tumor; grade II, it’s a low-grade Astrocytoma and is an infiltrating tumor; grade III, also referred to as Anaplastic (malignant) Astrocytoma because the tumor grows quickly; and grade IBM and it is the most aggressive type of tumor. This topic is important and interesting because it affects a lot of adults, and most of the time leads to death. It is interesting information can be learned from just this topic that someone might not know like that there are different stages of cancer and the earlier the stage the better. Astrocytoma is caused by cells that grow abnormally and form masses. Even though the exact cause of astrocytoma is not clear, abnormal cell growth is the general cause of tumors. It is found in both children and adults and it is also suspected that genetics affects development especially children with neurofibromatosis, a tumor that grows form nerve tissue (cedars-sinai 2013). A person with astrocytoma will experience different symptoms that are caused by brain pressure. Symptoms …show more content…
Aside of this processes doctors can also use devices to diagnose Astrocytoma such as the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a test that takes pictures of organs and structures inside the body using magnetic field and radio waves or the position emission tomography (PET), a special camera and tracer that takes pictures of organs (Starkweather 2011). The next step would be a biopsy, which uses tissue or fluid from the brain or spinal cord, which must be conducted to confirm the diagnosis and it is also used to determine the type of tumor and to indentify whether cancer cells are