Do Brain Tumors Show Up On CT Scans?

Posted on Tue, 13 Feb 2018

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Tue, 13 Feb 2018 Answered on

Fri, 28 Sep 2018 Last reviewed on

Question : Can you please advise what type of headaches with symptoms could be a brain tumor? Can you please a procedure like CT scan that can be done in self to find if there is a brain tumor or not? Thanks.

Answered by Dr. Sudhir Kumar (11 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Brain tumor can be detected on CT scan.

Detailed Answer:

Hello,

Brain tumor is an uncommon cause of headache. There are no specific symptoms of brain tumor, however, the following symptoms warrant doing a brain scan to rule out a brain tumor:

1. Severe headache, which gets worse at nights or in the early morning on waking up,
2. Vomiting without nausea, especially on waking up,
3. Blurred vision or double vision along with headache episodes,
4. Presence of weakness of an arm or a leg,
5. Fits or convulsions,
6. Papilledema (swelling of the optic nerve), which can be detected on eye examination by a doctor.

A CT scan of the brain can be done to exclude a brain tumor in most cases. However, a very small tumor (5 mm in size) may get missed on CT scan, for which an MRI of the brain may be needed (if a small brain tumor is suspected by the doctor).

Hope I have answered your query.
Let me know if I can assist you further.

Regards,
Dr. Sudhir Kumar, Neurologist

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar