Brain Tumor Center

Childhood Visual Pathway and Hypothalamic Glioma

What is Childhood Visual Pathway and Hypothalamic Glioma?

The brain controls memory and learning, senses (hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch), and emotion. It also controls other parts of the body, including muscles, organs, and blood vessels.

Other than leukemia and lymphoma, brain tumors are the type of cancer that occurs most commonly in children. Cancer found in the brain often has started somewhere else in the body and has spread (metastasized) to the brain. This overview covers tumors that start in the brain (primary brain tumors).

Childhood visual pathway and hypothalamic glioma is a type of brain tumor in which cancerous cells begin to grow in the tissues of the brain. Gliomas are a type of astrocytoma, a tumor that starts in brain cells called astrocytes. A visual pathway glioma occurs along the nerve that sends messages from the eye to the brain (the optic nerve). Visual pathway gliomas may grow rapidly or slowly, depending on the grade of the tumor.

If your child has symptoms that may be caused by a brain tumor, his or her doctor may order a computed tomographic (CT) scan, a diagnostic test that uses computers and x-rays to create pictures of the body, or a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, a diagnostic test similar to a CT scan using magnetic waves instead of x-rays.

Often, surgery is needed to determine whether there is a brain tumor and what type of tumor it is. The doctor may surgically remove a small sample of the tumor tissue and examine it under a microscope. This is called a biopsy. Sometimes a biopsy is done by making a small hole in the skull using a needle to extract a sample of the tumor.

A child's treatment and chance of recovery (prognosis) depend on the type and size of tumor, where it is located within the brain, and his or her age and general health.

This page was last updated on: March 3, 2008.