Efforts are under way to speed up the diagnosis of brain tumours in children in the UK.
The campaign, HeadSmart, is an ongoing partnership between the Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre at The University of Nottingham, The Brain Tumour Charity and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
It was relaunched on Monday (16 January) at the Royal College of General Practitioners in London, UK.
HeadSmart aims to raise awareness of the disease and its symptoms via symptom cards and a website with information on the warning signs of a brain tumour in babies, children and teenagers. Such warning signs include vomiting, balance problems and unusual eye movements.
The relaunched campaign has been updated following a review of all the new evidence. For example, newly-added symptoms include increasing head circumference in under-fives and loss of vision across all age groups.
So far, HeadSmart has helped to cut the average diagnosis time in the UK from over 13 weeks to 6.5 weeks.
"But there is still room for improvement," says Professor David Walker from the Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre. "An even shorter interval between first onset of symptoms and diagnosis of a brain tumour would significantly improve the prognosis for children who develop the disease and reduce the side effects of treatment.
"Our relaunch of the HeadSmart campaign uses new evidence, justifying a new approach to healthcare professionals, young people and parents of younger children. With this revised approach we aim to further accelerate the speed of diagnosis by helping doctors, young people and their families to work better together in selecting those who need a brain scan to diagnose or exclude a brain tumour."
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