Children's Cancer

Symptoms are not the same in every child, but can include:

• headaches
• nausea or vomiting
• problems with seeing (reduced and or double vision), hearing or talking
• problems with balance or coordination
• weakness or numbness in a part of the body, especially only on one side
• back pain
• changes in behaviour
• weight loss or weight gain for no reason
• seizures (fits)
• drowsiness or coma.

Very young children or babies may not be able to tell you their symptoms. Symptoms in young children can also include:

• irritability
• loss of appetite
• delays in development
• not thriving – where a child fails to gain enough weight
• decrease in physical or intellectual abilities, or losing abilities that they had before
• increase in head size or swelling of the soft spots (called fontanelle) of the skull.

Symptoms of brain and other CNS tumours can depend on:

• where the tumour is
• how fast it is growing
• the child’s age.

Some symptoms occur because the tumour creates pressure in the brain. Pressure in different parts of the brain can produce different symptoms.