Brain Tumor Center

Childhood Supratentorial Primitive Neuroectodermal and Pineal Tumors

What are Supratentorial Primitive Neuroectodermal and Pineal Tumors?

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. However, childhood supratentorial primitive neuroectodermal and pineal tumors are primary brain tumors-that is, they are brain tumors in which cancerous cells begin to grow in the tissues of the brain.

Brain tumors are grouped by their location within the brain and the type of brain cells where the cancer began. Supratentorial tumors are found in the upper part of the brain. Childhood supratentorial primitive neuroectodermal tumors are called supratentorial tumors because they affect the tissues overlying the tentorium cerebelli in the brain. Pineal region tumors are tumors found in or around a tiny organ (the pineal gland) located near the center of the brain.

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: February 6, 2008.