Overview

• NHS guidance lists key warning signs including headaches, seizures, persistent nausea or vomiting, drowsiness, mental or behavioural changes, weakness or paralysis on one side, and vision or speech problems.
• Patients reported subtle early cues such as word‑finding difficulty, brain fog, one‑sided numbness or tingling, visual distortions, messy handwriting, personality shifts, and persistent headaches.
• Symptoms commonly overlap with stress, fatigue, migraines or menopause, leading many people and GPs to dismiss them as everyday issues.
• Researchers at Queen Mary University of London are investigating brief cognitive tests for primary care and blood‑based liquid biopsies that detect tumour DNA, though these tools are not yet standard practice.
• Only about one‑third of brain tumours are malignant, yet late detection worsens outcomes, with roughly a quarter of people with glioblastoma living beyond one year.