In July 2022, 8-year-old British Isaiah Jarrett was hospitalized with extreme vomiting. The boy was initially diagnosed with gastroenteritis, a common inflammation of the stomach or intestines. However, the situation evolved and he began to experience stiff neck and headaches.
After undergoing a series of tests, the diagnosis was correct: he had a medulloblastoma, a type of brain tumor, which was already the size of a golf ball and spreading to other parts of the boy’s body.
“The child had symptoms of vomiting because the location of the tumor was in the region of the posterior fossa. The mass concentrated in this area usually causes dizziness, nausea, vomiting and symptoms that can often be confused with other gastrointestinal problems”, explains neurosurgeon Henrique Lira.
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Due to metastasis, which is the process of spreading the tumor to other regions of the body, Isaiah’s speech was compromised. The child needed to undergo intense chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment, in addition to undergoing a tracheostomy, a surgical procedure to open the patient’s trachea and facilitate breathing. Isaiah died eight months after being diagnosed with cancer.
According to Lira, brain tumors, especially among pediatric patients, can cause a variety of symptoms. They are rare, but when there is a suspicion of alteration in the child’s behavior, such as headache, difficulty walking or moving any of the limbs, doctors should broaden the diagnostic suspicions.
In cases like Isaiah’s, the ideal, according to the neurosurgeon, is to take the patient to a specialized neurological evaluation and perform the appropriate tests to arrive at the diagnosis as quickly as possible.
Faced with the situation, the boy’s mother, Dena Allen, remembers that she went into despair. “I thought it might have something to do with his belly, I never expected to hear that my son had a brain tumour. After his first surgery, I never heard Isaiah’s voice again. He learned to communicate through gestures and murmurs. Everything that could go wrong, he did ”, he laments.
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When diagnosed early and with the correct treatment for the case, the brain tumor can go into remission and many children manage to survive with a good quality of life.
Survival Expectation
The factors that may indicate the development of the disease depend on the stage, histological, cytogenetic and molecular parameters of the tumor, and the age of the patient. But in general:
- In the case of children under 3 years old, there is a probability of 50% to 60% that, in five years, the patient will be free of the disease, if the condition is severe. In tumors of medium severity, the chance increases to 80%;
- From the age of 3, the situation becomes more complicated – about 40% of children diagnosed already have metastasis. Patients who survive may have memory problems and delayed verbal learning and executive function.
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