Brain tumours typically grow slowly, resulting in the gradual progression of symptoms including, in some instances, tumour-related language difficulties. Traditionally, brain tumours were thought to result in language symptoms correlating with traditional lesion-symptom mapping, and research to date has mainly focused on the size of the tumour and its impact on linguistic function. The current study instead focused on functionally distinct tumour locations and both the linguistic and health-related quality-of-life sequelae of these difficulties. Data from 15 patients with low-grade tumours located either in the prefrontal cortex or the motor-sensory cortex, who had undergone a standardised preoperative assessment including linguistic and health-related quality-of-life measures, were analysed and compared with those from healthy controls. Results from the self-ratings of health-related quality of life demonstrated lower ratings in the psychosocial domain, particularly in the prefrontal cortex group. On language testing, patients with brain tumours also demonstrated lower mean scores than the control group, with the prefrontal cortex group demonstrating particular difficulties in semantic judgement tasks. The authors suggest that these results differ from traditional lesion-symptom mapping, highlighting the role of the prefrontal cortex in semantic evaluation and categorisation, and socio-emotional regulation. This study highlights a need for further investigation of both the symptoms and possible interventions to support people with low-grade tumours, an often neglected and overlooked clinical field in speech and language therapy.
Brain tumours don’t do what they’re told to – linguistic sequalae of low-grade brain tumours
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