What Are the Risk Factors for Brain and Spinal Cord Tumors in Adults?
A risk factor is anything that affects your chance of getting a disease such as cancer. Different cancers have different risk factors. For example, exposing skin to strong sunlight is a risk factor for skin cancer. Smoking is a risk factor for cancers of the lung, mouth, larynx (voice box), bladder, kidney, and several other organs. But risk factors don’t tell us everything. Having a risk factor, or even several, does not always mean that a person will get the disease, and many people get cancer without having any known risk factors. Most brain tumors are not associated with any known risk factors and have no obvious cause, but there are a few factors that may raise the risk of brain tumors. Radiation exposure The best established environmental risk factor for brain tumors is radiation exposure, most commonly from some type of radiation therapy. For example, before the risks of radiation were recognized, children with ringworm of the scalp (a fungal infection) were sometimes treated wi
