Within the next 12 months, about 600 people in Singapore will develop brain tumours, and 50 of them will be children.

The number of patients with brain tumours will increase by 10 to 15 per cent every year, says Dr Prem Pillay, president of the Brain Tumour Support Association.

He based this on figures from the Singapore Cancer Registry, Singapore General Hospital's Department of Radiotherapy and its brain tumour registry.

Despite this, brain tumours do not attract the kind of publicity that follows many other killer diseases.

Said the president of the National Brain Tumour Foundation in the United States, Mrs Sharon Lamb: "In America, brain tumours are known as the 'orphan's disease'. Not much attention is paid to it because it affects relatively fewer people than stroke, for example. Victims and their families have to fight for social support, and for more research into the disease.

Much more research money is being ploughed into investigating Aids and breast cancer than brain tumours, she told The Straits Times.

Brain tumours cannot be prevented because their cause is not known.

Patients in Singapore do not lack good medical care but many get too little emotional support and end up feeling isolated. Support groups for brain tumour patients are a recent phenomenon. They took off in the US only in the early 1990s, she said.

"The brain is such an intricate organ, and to many people, it still seems very mysterious. Many brain tumour victims feel their brains have been violated by the tumour.

"What makes it even more traumatic is having their heads cut open. It takes them a long time to recover, both physically and emotionally."

Mrs Lamb, a psychiatric nurse by training, will speak on the emotional needs of people with brain tumours at a public forum on Sunday, the first to be organised by the six-month-old Brain Tumour Support Association here. The occasion will also be its official launch by the Senior Minister of State (Health and Education), Dr Aline Wong.

Neurologist Wong Meng Chong said patients often find the getting back into society is the hardest part. He said: "Many have low morale because they think they look odd. They may have lost their hair, or have an incision scar on their heads. They may even have put on weight because of the medication." They take steroids to reduce swelling in the brain.

Survivors must also grapple with unemployment. Employers may not want to keep them on because they fear high medical bills. Such employees may be shunted aside because employers doubt their capabilities.

Dr Pillay said: "We need to do more to educate the public, especially employers, about brain tumours and their victims, and this is one area that the association will focus on."