Brain Cancer

Epidemiology: Central nervous system (CNS) cancers affect a staggering percentage of the population across all ages accounting to 1.6% of global incidence of all cancers [1]. CNS cancer ranks tenth in terms of mortality [1]. Eastern Asia has the highest cases and fatality rate, followed by South-Central Asia and Northern America. According to GLOBOCAN, males show higher global incidence (168,346 cases; cumulative risk: 0.40) and mortality rates (138,277 deaths; cumulative risk 0.34) than females (incidence: 139,756 cases; cumulative risk 0.31; mortality: 113,052 deaths; cumulative risk 0.26). In the United States, the median age of diagnosis and death are 59 and 66, respectively and the age-adjusted rate of incidence was 7.08 per 100,000 during 2013–2017 [2]. Malignant tumors constitute 29.7% and nonmalignant tumors comprise 70.3% of all the brain and CNS cancers [3]. The frequencies of nonmalignant tumors also vary by type: nonmalignant meningioma (37.9%) and nonmalignant glioma (1.0%) [3]. Besides the incidence, it is found that primary brain malignancies are more frequent in the frontal region (24.3%) followed by the temporal (17.5%), parietal (10.4%), and occipital (2.6%) areas making up to 54.8% of the total [3].