When I’m feeling a bit mellow or philosophical, I often wonder what things we’ll laugh about doing when we were young doctors. A colleague tells me that he was firmly instructed as a junior doctor that when taking aminophyline levels he shouldn’t smoke. The challenge is to spot what will seem equally baffling to my younger colleagues. I’ve had a bit of a hint of this, being employed at one of the institutions where Andrew Peet, first author on this paper works, and sat in wonder through some of his amazing presentations. In short, and in this (virtual) layperson’s terms, they are using magnetic resonance spectroscopy to peak inside the brain and look at what stuff is there. Well, you might say, that’s just MR. But when I say stuff, I don’t just mean the beautiful pictures we’re becoming so used to these days. more…

In a population study of tuberous sclerosis, ten (5.6%) of 179 patients with the condition had a presentation with symptomatic giant cell astrocytoma, but many more have non-symptomatic sub-ependymal nodes if MRI screening is performed.  Here.

A review of the cases of childhood cancer in Ireland reveal similar figures to other developed counties.  Here.

Of 27 children diagnosed with brain tumours in the first year of life over a 25 year period in a Swiss institution, the 11 survivors had high levels of medical complications, and had poor health-related quality of life. Here.