News Story

New Study Hopes to Improve Management of Brain Tumors in Young Children

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is one of the most common cancer predisposition syndromes, where children are prone to develop low-grade brain tumors. In order to better define the MRI features and natural history of non-optic pathway tumors (non-OPTs) in children with NF1,  Dr. Jasia Mahdi conducted a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of 64 children with NF1 harboring 100 non-OPTs. Their findings showed that the majority of non-OPTs grew over time and caused medical problems. In addition, she also identified a small subset of children with a particularly aggressive form of brain tumor, which tended to arise in younger children. The researchers hope that these findings will improve the recognition and management of children with NF1.


Mahdi J, Goyal MS, Griffith J, Morris SM, Gutmann DH. Nonoptic pathway tumors in children with neurofibromatosis type 1. Neurology. 2020 Apr 16. pii: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000009458. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000009458. [Epub ahead of print]. PMID: 32300062.