Expert: Claes-Gustaf Nordquist, M.D. - 6/19/2008

Question
Don't even think about telling me that lipomas are not brain tumors because I have had three MRIs at some point in time during my short lifespan of 29 years all within the past 15 years which all show a fatty or adipose cerebral lipoma in the brain.  I am only recently after having a third one due to having sustained a mild concussion to the frontal sinus region of the head being told that it could be congenital.  My mother also has one.  

My mother is told that hers is the reason she has headaches and localized seizures and possibly hasn't reached menopause yet.

I'm told it shouldn't cause any problems but have been extremely prone to headaches and dizziness all my life only now it seems the headaches and dizziness have intensified to no relief.  

My ENT says it's not sinuses or my ears.  My neurologists says it's sinuses or my ears.  I'm getting a headache and getting dizzy just getting bounced back and forth between them!

So, anyway, I keep waking up with these headaches.  Sometimes they are relieved as I eat and carry forth through the day and sometimes not.  

I get the dizzy spells mostly in motion (even driving).

I have nausea probably from the dizzy spells.  

I have had persistent low-grade fevers between 99-101 degrees for over two months.

I have had sore throat and cough with all of this.

Worst, I am extremely fatigued and exhausted and am now having sleeping problems such to the extent that I fall asleep throughout the day.  

Now, knowing for sure that I do have a lipoma in my brain, I do wonder how much of an impact could that truly have in terms of my symptoms?  

I know there is not a lot of research on lipomas in the brain primarily because they are very rare but they do exist and the way it was put to me after the CT scan that led to the third MRI, it's definitely in there and it's definitely unusual.

Answer
Well if it is a brain tumor or not depends on its location. If a tumor is located in the brain it is by definition a brain tumor - regardless of what kind of tumor it is. A lipoma is indeed a kind of tumor, though benign (not malignant). However, I'm a medical oncologist & radiation therapist with experience of treating brain tumors (mostly malignant) NOT a neurologist or a neurosurgeon. This question should be answered by an expert of either neurology or neurosurgery, since this is a kind of tumor I have no experience of! It is normally not treated with radiological or medical oncological methods. If treated treatment would most probably be surgical. So I strongly suggest that you discuss this with such an expert.