Brain Tumor Foundation

Patient support & counseling: the Brain Tumor Foundation (btf) guides and supports patients and families affected by Brain tumors. As part of the early detection campaign, the mobile mri unit travels to key cities and urban sites throughout the country offering free Brain scans. Btf has established relationships with fixed radiology centers offering affordable scans. With these scans key data relating to patient demographics, medical and family history, and environmental exposures are collected with in-person interviews. Patients with significant findings are followed over time, enabling us to evaluate the full significance of the Brain Tumor screening program. Btf kids helps support pediatric patients and their families. The kidsapp, a project of btf kids, is an innovative approach to help alleviate the fears and anxieties that fill pediatric patients. Included in the app is a guide for parents. Patients can also use the app as a means of communicating with older and younger siblings helping to explain the issues they encounter. Btf works with major neuro medical teams and child life specialists around the country providing them with access to the app. The app will also be used in a research project focused on how best to treat the emotional "dis-ease" of children suffering from Brain tumors.

Education, outreach and medical referrals: the Brain Tumor Foundation (btf) educates medical professionals and the public about the need for the early detection of Brain tumors while continuing to offer support groups, medical referrals, and organizing informational events. With nationwide participation and support, btf's road to early detection campaign - a first-ever, ground-breaking project - is an official research study in adherence with irb mandates. Btf collaborates with columbia university medical center, new york-presbyterian hospital and the mailman school for public health. The research will help us determine the prevalence of malignant/non-malignant tumors in an asymptomatic population of adults and describe these findings as a function of age, race/ethnicity, gender and more. It will also determine the prevalence of incidental findings, including other central nervous system lesions (meningioma, aneurysm, and other tumors), vascular and structural abnormalities, and extra-cranial findings detectable by mri. The research team will follow patients with abnormal and acute findings for outcomes.