• A brain tumor is a cluster of abnormal cells growing in the brain.
• There are more than 120 different types of brain tumors; some are malignant (cancerous), many are benign (non-cancerous).
• Primary brain tumors are those that begin in the brain and tend to stay in the brain. Metastatic brain tumors begin as a cancer elsewhere in the body and migrate, or metastasize, to the brain.
• Every year approximately 200,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with metastatic or primary brain tumor.
• An estimated 62,000 new cases of primary brain tumors are expected to be diagnosed in 2010.
• It is estimated that more than 600,000 people in the United States are living with the diagnosis of a primary brain tumor.
• The American Cancer Society reported that deaths due to malignant brain tumors decreased 14.36 percent between 1991 and 2004.
• The five-year survival rate for malignant brain tumors is approximately 31 percent.
• The cause of brain tumors is unknown.
Source: American Brain Tumor Association