Brain tumors can be aggressive but also slow growing. For some cancer patients, the complications with brain tumors may exist for many years before a brain tumor is diagnosed. If you are suffering from color blindness, it is important to ask your physician to rule out, or confirm, the presence of a brain tumor as color blindness can be an underlying symptom.
The ability to see and perceive colors is a process that is achieved in the brain. When a brain tumor is present, the complication with color blindness may be attributed to a change in vision or it may be attributed to a change in the way the brain is processing the colors seen. When either of these complications arise, a tumor may be present in different parts of the brain and may even affect the bone of the skull, a condition similar to that of osteochondroma.
To determine if you have a brain tumor, as the underlying cause of your color blindness, your physician can simply order a CT scan of the brain, or an MRI of the brain, which will typically show evidence of tumor if one is present. Depending upon where the tumor is located, surgery to remove the tumor may be possible but many patients will need aggressive chemotherapy to first reduce and minimize the growth of the brain tumor.
With early diagnosis and treatment, many patients with a brain tumor, and associated color blindness, will recover without further health complications. In some cases, after the brain tumor is removed and treated, color blindness may continue due to damage to the cells in the brain that control vision perception or brain processing of color. It is important, as a patient, that you become familiar with the possible outcomes and prepare accordingly.
When color blindness is present without a brain tumor, there are other complications that may cause this complication. For the best diagnosis, your ophthalmologist can run a series of tests, including blood work to also rule out, or confirm, the presence of infection. In many cases, color blindness is a complication that is temporary, and will resolve, once the underlying complication is diagnosed.