Girl diagnosed with rare form of brain tumour

An eight-year-old girl has been diagnosed by doctors of the Neurology Department in the GGH to be affected by Dysembryoplastic Neuro Epithelial Tumor (DNET), a rare form of brain tumour.

Admitted with multiple symptoms such as altered behaviour, recurrent falls and memory disturbances, she had a history of multiple episodes of falls in a day, with each episode lasting for about a few seconds to minutes, associated with altered behaviour in the form of excessive anger, fearlessness, arrogance, disobedience. “Initially, her parents took her to psychiatrist where she was diagnosed as having early onset psychosis. She was prescribed some antipsychotics and was referred to a neurologist. We then had a CT scan done which revealed that she was having a tumour in medial temporal lobe of brain,” said HoD, Department of Neurology, N.V. Sundarachary.

Her recurrent falls have been attributed to complex partial seizures as the EEG recording showed slowing in the right temporal leads and spike wave discharges in the left temporal leads.

For the family, the months preceding her illness have been a nightmare. At times she would speak abusive words, has auditory and visual hallucinations in the form of hearing unknown voices and sounds. Apart from an urge to undress before going to sleep, she also identified herself as a male of six years and sometimes does not recognise her parents.

“We have recommended surgery to remove the tumour. No adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy is required,” said Dr. Sundarachary.

The rare form of illness makes a case for a combination of neurology and psychiatry treatments.