"Anorexia saved my life": coincidental anorexia nervosa and cerebral meningioma

Int J Eat Disord. 2001 Nov;30(3):346-9. doi: 10.1002/eat.1095.

Abstract

Objective: We report on a 13-year-old girl with coincidental occult intracranial tumor and early-onset anorexia nervosa.

Method: The cerebral meningioma was discovered fortuitously as the result of a research project using SPECT imaging to locate a neurobiological substrate in patients with anorexia nervosa. Without SPECT, the meningioma would have remained undiagnosed until it had become symptomatic. The two conditions appear to have been completely unrelated.

Results and discussion: The case highlights two important points. First, intracranial pathology should also be considered however certain is the diagnosis of early-onset anorexia nervosa. Second, neuroimaging plays an important part in diagnosing early-onset anorexia nervosa, both from a clinical and a research prospective.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Anorexia Nervosa / complications*
  • Anorexia Nervosa / diagnostic imaging*
  • Brain / diagnostic imaging
  • Brain Neoplasms / diagnosis
  • Brain Neoplasms / diagnostic imaging*
  • Diagnosis, Differential
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Meningioma / diagnosis
  • Meningioma / diagnostic imaging*
  • Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon