[Spontaneous involution of frontal tumors in a patient with neurofibromatosis type 1]

To present a patient with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) who had cerebral tumors (in a non-optic pathway location) that regressed spontaneously.

A girl with NF1 and cerebral tumors, probably astrocytomas, with similar neuroimaging characteristics, was studied by magnetic resonance (MR) and MR spectroscopy between 29 months and 6- years of age. The frontal tumors (one on each hemisphere) did not change size in the MR studies done during the first three and a half years of life, but, at six years, the right frontal lobe tumor had apparently disappeared and the left frontal lobe tumor had decreased in a 90% of its original size. During the first three and half years of life, MR images did not demonstrate any optic tumor. However, such a tumor appeared well developed when the MR study was performed at six years of age.

Involution of cerebral tumors associated with NF1, unrelated to optic pathway, is rare, but has been observed in some patients. Optic pathway tumors can develop in patients with NF1 between three and six years of age.