Verbal fluency as a quick and simple tool to help in deciding when to refer patients with a possible brain tumour.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Patients with brain tumours often present with non-specific symptoms. Correctly identifying who to prioritise for urgent brain imaging is challenging. Brain tumours are amongst the commonest cancers diagnosed as an emergency presentation. A verbal fluency task (VFT) is a rapid triage test affected by disorders of executive function, language and processing speed. We tested whether a VFT could support identification of patients with a brain tumour.

Methods

This proof-of-concept study examined whether a VFT can help differentiate patients with a brain tumour from those with similar symptoms (i.e. headache) without a brain tumour. Two patient populations were recruited, (a) patients with known brain tumour, and (b) patients with headache referred for Direct-Access Co

SUBMITTER: Zienius K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8978365 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature