engleski

Stroke-like syndrome as the first clinical presentation of brain tumors

Over 5 consecutive years 139 cases of brain tumor have been diagnosed in patients hospitalized at the Department of Neurology, University Hospital Osijek, Croatia. Diagnoses were primarily made using computed tomography (CT) brain scans, and in some cases confirmed by pathohystological tissue examination during operation or after autopsy. A considerable proportion of those patients (20%) was admitted to the hospital with clinical symptoms of stroke. According to the time course of the development of symptoms the patients were divided into two subgroups; 16 an acute stroke-like onset within 24 hours, and 12 with a slower progression of the symptoms mimicking cerebovascular diseases. The most common first symptom in both subgroups of patients was motor hemiparesis, followed by speech disorders, acute headache, and in individual cases hemianopia, vertigo, sensory loss and impairment of consciousness. The primary brain tumors were found in 17 patients, and the rest had methastatic tumors. The CT brain scans showed the presence of massive brain hemorrhage only in four cases, most of the cases were characterized with the CT signs of the intracranial compression and brain edema. A clinical diagnosis of the stroke syndrome in some cases of brain tumors may be misleading, thus the early diagnostic work-up in these patients is required to allow an adequate treatment.

brain tumors; stroke; differential diagnosis

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