Neuronal And Mixed Neuronal-Glial Tumours
What is a neuronal or mixed neuronal-glial (glioneuronal) tumour?
What causes a neuronal or mixed neuronal-glial tumour?
What are the symptoms of a neuronal or mixed neuronal-glial tumour?
How is a neuronal or mixed neuronal-glial tumour diagnosed?
Treatment options for neuronal or mixed neuronal-glial brain tumours
What is the prognosis for neuronal or mixed neuronal-glial tumours?
Frequently asked questions
Are neuronal and mixed neuronal-glial tumours benign or cancerous?
The majority of these tumours are low-grade, slow growing tumours. Those that can be completely removed using neurosurgery would be considered to be benign, although sometimes the symptoms that these low-grade tumours can cause are challenging and hence the term benign may not feel appropriate.
Only very rarely do these tumours present in aggressive, high-grade forms of cancer.
How common are neuronal or mixed neuronal-glial tumours?
For children, neuronal and mixed neuronal-glial tumours represent about 10% of all tumours of the central nervous system (brain and spine).
Occasionally these tumours may also be diagnosed in adults, but this is more unusual and no reliable statistics for such cases are available.
How will we find a cure for neuronal and mixed neuronal-glial brain tumours?
Research we are funding across all of our dedicated Research Centres will help lead towards finding a cure for a wide range of brain tumours.
Pioneering research at our Brain Tumour Research Centre at Queen Mary University of London is focused on using glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) stem cells to help develop unique, patient-specific treatments. GBMs are the most aggressive type of glioma brain tumour in adults and it is hoped that discoveries will translate into other types of adult and paediatric gliomas.
Our team at the University of Plymouth Low-Grade Brain Tumour Research Centre are researching a number of molecular pathways that influence immune system function, tumour metabolism and tumour growth in a range of low-grade brain tumours in children and adults. This includes how gliomas begin, and how they transform from low-grade to high-grade.
The team of research and clinical experts in our Research Centre at Imperial College, London are studying the way in which the ketogenic diet works in brain tumours including gliomas. Their work on drugs that reduce levels of arginine, an amino acid in the blood, may also have the potential to influence a wide range of brain tumours.
We also fund BRAIN UK at Southampton University, the country’s only national tissue bank registry providing crucial access to brain tumour samples for researchers from all clinical neuroscience centres in the UK, effectively covering about 90% of the UK population, and an essential component in the fight to find a cure for all types of brain tumours.
Page last updated in October 2019.