Jan. 24, 2013 Nearly the entire genetic landscape of the most
common form of brain tumor can be explained by abnormalities in
just five genes, an international team of researchers led by
Yale School of Medicine scientists report online in the Jan. 24
edition of the journal Science. Knowledge of the genomic profile
of the tumors and their location in the brain make it possible
for the first time to develop personalized medical therapies for
meningiomas, which currently are only managed surgically.
Meningioma tumors affect about 170,000 patients in the United
States. They are usually benign but can turn malignant in about
10 percent of cases. Even non-cancerous tumors can require
surgery if they affect the surrounding brain tissue and disrupt
neurological functions. Approximately half of the tumors have
already been linked to a mutation or deletion of a gene called
neurofibromin 2, or NF2. The origins of the rest of the
meningiomas had remained a mystery. The Yale team conducted
genomic analyses of 300 meningio