Nikita Pearl Waligwa, the Ugandan child actress, passed away on Saturday at a hospital near the Ugandan capital, Kampala. The 15-year old starred in the 2016 film Queen Of Katwe, a Disney movie that follows the extraordinary life of a local chess player. Gayaza High School, the Secondary School she attended since 2018, revealed that the young actress died of a brain tumour. In the wake of this heartbreaking news, this article will focus on brain tumour causes, symptoms, treatment and every other thing you need to know.
What causes brain tumour?
A tumour is a mass formed when abnormal cells build up. The cells in your body are supposed to age, then die and be replaced by new ones, but when this cycle is interrupted the result is a tumour. Unlike the normal cells, these tumour cells refuse to die and instead continue to grow, even though your body doesn’t need them. As time goes on, more cells keep adding to the mass, making the tumour grow bigger. So when something like this grows anywhere in your brain, it is known as a brain tumour.
Fortunately, a brain tumour isn’t something that happens very often. According to the American Cancer Society, people have less than a 1 per cent chance of developing the serious version of a brain tumour in their lifetime. Sadly, Waligwa was reportedly diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2016 and then she was cleared in 2017 before another tumour was discovered in 2019. According to local media reports, she had been in and out of the hospital and had previously received treatment, including surgery in India.
The teenage actress, who played the role of Gloria, a younger friend of the main character in Queen of Katwe, was described as “a darling to many” by her high school on Twitter. “No words can explain the pain at the moment,” the tweet added.
Image: Shutterstock
What are the risk factors of a brain tumour?
Factors that can increase your chances of getting a brain tumour include a family history of brain tumour and exposure to high doses of radiation. Also, cancers (tumours) are known to have the ability to spread to other parts of the body, which means a tumour in another part of your body could spread to your brain. These other cancers include:
- Skin cancer
- Lung cancer
- Breast cancer
- Kidney cancer
- Bladder cancer
Other causes of tumours include:
- Exposure to harmful materials like pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers
- Working with elements that can cause cancer, such as lead, plastic, rubber, petroleum, and textiles
- Increased age
- Long-term smoking
- Infections caused by Epstein-Barr virus
A healthy Brain vs A brain with a tumour
Brain tumour Types of brain tumour
More than 120 kinds of brain tumours exist, with so many subtypes. Different doctors may refer to the same tumour with different names since there’s no set standard for naming them according to type.
However, tumours are generally named according to the part of your body where they are found, which is why a tumour in the brain is called a brain tumour. Whereas, any tumour that starts somewhere else in the body before spreading to the brain is called metastatic brain cancer.
There are also types and grades of brain tumours. Classifying a brain tumour type depends on where the tumour is located in your brain. While the stages, ranging from 1 to 4, are an indication of how fast the tumour is growing, with 4 being the fastest.
Symptoms of brain tumour
Brain tumour symptoms depend on the size and position of the tumour in the brain. However, a combination of a few of the symptoms you will see below shouldn’t scare you. This is because the same symptoms can be caused by other less severe conditions. To be sure, see your doctor for the correct diagnosis. Below are some of the general symptoms of brain tumour:
- Vomiting
- Worsening headaches in the morning
- Nausea
- Poor coordination
- Poor balance
- Unexplained passing out
- Drowsiness
- Difficulty walking
- Memory lapses
- Difficulty thinking
- Numbness or tingling in the arms or legs
- Seizures
- Personality changes
- Muscle twitching
- Speech problems
- Vision problems
- Abnormal eye movements
- Muscle jerking
How can a brain tumour be treated?
As previously stated, there’s a brain tumour that starts in the brain and there’s one that starts elsewhere in the body. So treatments differ depending on the size, type and the location of the brain tumour. Your age and health, in general, are factors to consider in the treatment the doctor might choose. The doctor may use one or two of the treatments below:
Surgery can be used to remove a tumour in your brain, but that’s not always possible. This is because some brain tumours are located in very sensitive areas of the brain, which makes it hard to reach. In cases like this, the tumour is deemed inoperable.
Your doctor may administer chemotherapy drugs orally or through the vein to help destroy the cancer cells and shrink the tumour in your brain. Sometimes, radiation therapy can be used to kill cancer cells and tumour tissues that cannot be removed surgically.
- Drugs and other medications
The doctor might recommend the kind of drugs that are produced from living organisms to help restore your body’s defence against the tumour. These kinds of drugs provide support to enable your body to fight the brain tumour.
Afterwards, you may go through rehabilitation if the tumour has affected your ability to speak, walk or do other daily activities.
Also read: The most common of all symptoms of ovarian cancer in women
Sources: Healthline, Medical News Today, Aljazeera
