Symptoms

People with meningioma may experience the following symptoms. Sometimes, people with meningioma do not show any of these symptoms. Or, these symptoms may be caused by a medical condition that is not a tumor. If you are concerned about a symptom on this list, please talk with your doctor.

Symptoms of meningioma can be general (due to the pressure of the tumor on the brain or spinal cord), or specific (due to the interruption of the normal functioning of a specific part of the brain or pressure on nerves or blood vessels). Generally, meningioma is not diagnosed until symptoms begin.

General symptoms include:

• Seizures. Motor seizures, also referred to as convulsions, are sudden involuntary movements of a person’s muscles. People may experience different types of seizures, including myclonic and tonic-clonic (grand mal). Certain drugs can help prevent or control them. The differences between these types of seizures can be found below:
  • Myclonic
    • Single or multiple muscle twitches, jerks, spasms
  • Tonic-Clonic (Grand Mal)
    • Loss of consciousness and body tone, followed by twitching and relaxing muscles contractions
      
      
    • Loss of control of body functions
      
      
    • May be short period of no breathing (30 seconds) and person may turn a shade of blue
      
      
    • After this type of seizure a person may be sleepy and experience a headache, confusion, weakness, numbness, and sore muscles.
• Headaches, which may be severe and may worsen with activity or in the early morning
  
  
• Mental changes, such as personality or memory changes
  
  
• Nausea or vomiting
  
  
• Vision changes, such as blurred vision

Symptoms that may be specific to the location of the tumor include:

Falx and parasagittal meningioma

• Leg weakness

Convexity meningioma

• Seizures
  
  
• Headaches
  
  
• Focal neurological deficits, which are problems with nerve function affect either a specific location, such as the left side of the face, right side of the face, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg, or a small area, such as the tongue. The tumor can also affect a specific function. For example, speech may be affected, but not the ability to write. It also may result in a loss of movement or sensation.
  
  
• Mental changes

Sphenoid meningioma

• Facial symptoms, such as the loss of sensation or numbness in the face
  
  
• Vision problems, such as loss of patches within field of vision, blindness, double vision

Olfactory groove meningioma

• Loss of sense of smell
  
  
• Vision problems, such as loss of patches within field of vision, blindness, double vision

Posterior fossa meningioma

• Facial symptoms, such as sharp pain in the face, facial numbness, and spasms of the facial muscles
  
  
• Loss of hearing
  
  
• Difficulty swallowing
  
  
• Trouble walking

Suprasellar meningioma

• Swelling of the optic disk, which is the region in the retina of the eye where nerve fibers come together to form part of the optic nerve.
  
  
• Vision problems, such as loss of patches within field of vision, blindness, double vision

Spinal meningioma

• Back pain
  
  
• Pain in the limbs or chest

Intraorbital meningioma

• Bulging of the eye
  
  
• Loss of vision

Intraventricular meningioma

• Mental changes
  
  
• Headaches
  
  
• Dizziness