Mutation discovery may improve treatment for rare brain tumor type
The discovery, reported in Nature Genetics, is encouraging, because it may be possible to attack the tumors with targeted drugs already in use for other kinds of tumors, said the investigators from Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The mutated gene, known as BRAF, was found in almost all samples of tumors called papillary craniopharyngiomas. This is one of two types of craniopharyngiomas — the other being adamantinomatous — that develop in the base of the brain near the pituitary gland, hypothalamus, and optic nerves. The papillary craniopharyngiomas occur mainly in adults; adamantinomatous tumors generally affect children. …