The scientists are struggling to understand why some people who get infected with COVID-19 tend to develop neurological symptoms.
Currently, there are not enough studies found that can conclude whether COVID-19 can affect brain tumours or not. However, some studies have shown that decisions related to brain tumour treatment can be affected by the pandemic as patients may contract the virus while they are in the hospital.
But coronavirus has raised significant concerns about its effects on brain-related disorders including brain tumour and the questions remain to be answered if the effect of the virus is significant on people with a brain tumour, also if it is safe to undergo treatment in the current times.
However, it depends on the seriousness of the patient’s condition whether the treatment for a brain tumor can be delayed or not. If the condition of the patient is critical then the patient immediately need to be administered to follow all the COVID-19 protocols and if the condition is normal the treatment can be done when it’s safe. It’s on the doctor to decide whether the treatment is required urgently or can be delayed.
“Brain tumour is becoming very common now-a-days because of more detection, availability of better diagnostics methods like CT and MRI in all the cities and even in towns it is available, so that has increased the detection. There is no data to suggest that whether the actual number of brain tumours have increased over the time, but India has a large number of population and most of the tumours in patients remain undetected because they do not come forward for the treatment,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta Director – Neuro & Spine Surgery, Fortis Noida.
He added, “Now during the COVID-19 era the brain tumour incidence has not decreased or increased per se but patients are somehow reluctant to come to the hospital to get investigated. So basically, the main symptoms of brain tumour are headache, persisting vomiting, vision impairment, hearing impairment, imbalance while walking even a new onset seizer can indicate a brain tumour. Sometimes there can be lymph weakness or weakness of the face, so if anyone has these symptoms then you must not neglect them and rather come to the hospital or go consult your physician.”
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MRI is the one and only investigation that is best to diagnose a brain tumour. CT scan can sometimes miss a brain tumour hence we should not rely purely on CT scan rather should go for the MRI of the brain. MRI’s can detect every minute detail of the tumour so one must go for MRI check even during this pandemic because it is important, he said.
Once the tumour is detected it can be understood when to do a brain tumour surgery based on the MRI result, that how urgent it is. Certain tumours are small in size that can lead to the irritation like headache or seizure, in such cases there is no such urgency to get the brain surgery done rather we can wait for the COVID situation to come under control and then the treatment or the planning can be done.