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New Concepts in the Imaging of Pediatric Brain Tumors: The Revival of Age-old Real Estate Principles

  • Neuroimaging (B Soares, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Tumor location and age of the patient are important diagnostic imaging clues in neurooncology. Recently, the value of tumor location analysis has gained significance because of improvements in our understanding of the neurodevelopmental origins and genetic as well as epigenetic features of CNS tumors, especially in children. This knowledge has contributed to the development of the concept of “imaging genomics,” which is based on the recognition that imaging has the potential to translate and validate some of the already existing hypotheses from basic research to the clinical practice and propose others based on large-scale in vivo human observational studies. Interestingly, the old real estate principles, “location, location and location” (of tumors) and “age” (of the patient) are now central elements of many of the new concepts and increasingly reconceptualize the diagnostic imaging approaches to these diseases. This paper reviews some of the groundbreaking basic neurobiology discoveries about medulloblastomas, ependymomas, and high-grade gliomas and their implications on the pediatric neuroradiologist’s approach to these diseases in the clinical setting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Diagnostic Imaging, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, MS 220, Memphis, TN, 38105, USA

    Zoltan Patay

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  1. Zoltan Patay
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Correspondence to Zoltan Patay.

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Zoltan Patay reports grants from the United States National Institutes of Health Cancer Center.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical collection on Neuroimaging.

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Patay, Z. New Concepts in the Imaging of Pediatric Brain Tumors: The Revival of Age-old Real Estate Principles. Curr Radiol Rep 4, 32 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40134-016-0164-x

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