You can sometimes live a long life with craniopharyngioma and in some cases craniopharyngioma may be cured.
Someone can live a long life with craniopharyngioma.
Following treatment, patients diagnosed with a craniopharyngioma have 10-year survival rates of approximately 90%.
This means that 90% of patients live at least 10 years and some have lived a bit longer.
The follow up guidelines for craniopharyngioma is to have a brain MRI every 3 months for one year and then an MRI every 6 months for 1 year and then after that you should have an annual MRI until year 5.
If you've received radiation therapy then an MRI should be done annually or every other year for the rest of your life because of a potential risk for second malignancies.
The age that most people get craniopharyngioma is the ages of 5 to 14 although adults over age 50 can also get craniopharyngioma.
The long term effects of craniopharyngiomas are damage to your vision and hormone levels, narrowing or stroke symptoms, necrosis, breakdown of brain tissue and vasculopathy blood vessel damage.
While it's not known for sure what causes craniopharyngioma it's believed that the craniopharyngioma tumors develop from cells that helped to form your or your child's pituitary gland.
Something causes these cells to transform into abnormal cells that multiply and grow.
Craniopharyngiomas behavior consists of mood swings, confusion or other behavior changes and even a headache and increased thirst and increased urination.
The psychiatric symptoms of craniopharyngiomas are psychosis, catatonia, mania and rapidly progressive dementia.
The symptoms of a craniopharyngioma are.
Headache.
Peripheral field vision loss.
Eye movement weakness/double vision.
Vomiting.
Personality changes, confusion.
Hormonal insufficiency/hypothalamic dysfunction.
Adrenal insufficiency.
Craniopharyngioma is a rare brain tumor which usually form near the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus.
The Craniopharyngiomas are benign (not cancer) and do not spread to other parts of the brain or to other parts of the body.
The symptoms of craniopharyngiomas are.
Headache.
Peripheral field vision loss.
Eye movement weakness/double vision.
Vomiting.
Personality changes, confusion.
Hormonal insufficiency/hypothalamic dysfunction.
Adrenal insufficiency.
Although because of their aggressive local growth and location near delicate structures in the brain, craniopharyngiomas can cause devastating neurological symptoms.
And their propensity to attach to vital glands, brain structures, and blood vessels makes it difficult to remove entire tumors with surgery.
Craniopharyngiomas are most commonly found in children between the ages of 5 and 14.
However, adults over age 50 can also develop these tumors.
Following treatment, patients diagnosed with a craniopharyngioma have 10-year survival rates of approximately 90%.
This means that 90% of patients live at least 10 years.
Apart from those deaths directly attributed to the tumor and those related to the surgical interventions, the risk of cardio-/cerebrovascular and respiratory mortality is increased.