Case Report Shows Pregnant Woman's Brain Tumor Vanished After Delivery

Headaches and nausea aren’t exactly uncommon pregnancy symptoms. But one California mom-to-be knew her month of intense headaches on the left side of her forehead, paired with vomiting and blurred vision, wasn’t normal. She’d been pregnant twice before and never experienced those symptoms. At 37 weeks pregnant, she was diagnosed with a meningioma, a rather common type of tumor. Stay with us; this story has a happy ending, we swear.

According to a case study published in World Neurosurgery last month, an MRI detected the tumor, which was the size of a grape, along with significant swelling in the woman’s brain. Because she was in her ninth month of pregnancy, her doctors decided to wait until after she delivered to operate.

A month after giving birth, the woman still reported headaches, but no longer associated them with blurred vision. Still, her doctors scheduled a surgery for the following month. At her final pre-surgery appointment, she went in for one more MRI. The brain swelling was gone and the tumor had all but vanished, shrinking to the size of a sunflower seed.

Now you see it, now you don’t—doctors are deeming it a “Houdini tumor.” The case report indicates it’s unclear when the woman’s tumor began to develop. Because a meningioma can feed off of elevated levels of hormones like estrogen and progesterone during pregnancy, it’s possible there had already been a small growth on her brain before pregnancy that enlarged during gestation and shrunk again after delivery.

In any case, she no longer requires surgery—just some close monitoring. The authors of the case report have one key conclusion for future doctors treating a tumor in an expectant patient:

“Because meningioma shrinkage or disappearance may occur after pregnancy, repeat imaging is advised as part of a preoperative evaluation.”

Always make sure to re-test.

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