Brain Cancer Awareness Month is observed in May. Each year more than 23,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with brain cancer and other nervous system cancers, according to federal statistics. These cancers make up a portion of the nearly 78,000 brain tumors diagnosed each year in the United States.

Brain Cancer Awareness Month educates people that tumors which start in the brain are called primary brain tumors. Primary brain tumors may spread to other parts of the brain or to the spine, but rarely spread to other parts of the body. Often, tumors found in the brain have started elsewhere in the body and spread to one or more parts of the brain called metastatic brain tumors. Metastatic brain tumors are more common than primary brain tumors. About half of metastatic brain tumors are from lung cancer.