The 50-year-old singer announced Tuesday that she has a meningioma, a usually benign tumor that forms on the outer covering of the brain and spinal cord known as the meninges.
Up to 10,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with a meningioma each year, but only about 10% of the cases are cancerous, says Mary Lovely, an assistant adjunct professor of physiological nursing at the University of California San Francisco and a senior adviser of national programs at the American Brain Tumor Association. Some people either have the tumor removed or just monitor it for further growth.
“Each person’s case is different, for some people it could mean nothing,” Lovely tells the Health Blog. She says she’s happy the growth hadn’t seriously affected Ms. Crow, but noted that the tumors can have implications for other patients, such as prohibiting driving, depending on the location and size of the growth.
Ms. Crow, a breast-cancer survivor, decided to seek medical help a few months ago after suffering from a lapse in memory including forgetting the lyrics to her own songs. Memory loss, visual impairment and limb weakness are some of the more common symptoms of the growth, which accounts for a third of all brain tumors.
For reasons unknown, meningiomas are most common in people over age 35 and twice as common in women as men.
Lovely, who isn’t involved with Ms. Crow’s treatment, says meningiomas are so common that doctors may find them “accidentally” in patients, and that it’s possible Ms. Crow’s memory loss isn’t even a result of the growth.
She also says there is no current link between meningiomas and other types of cancer, but that radiation to the head may increase the risk of developing the tumors.