Neurofibromatosis, also known as Von Recklinghausen disease, is an inherited disease that occurs around age 15 and produces abnormal growth of nerve tissue, forming small external tumors, called neurofibromas.
Neurofibromatosis is generally benign and poses no health risk, as the cause of external tumors can cause bodily changes, causing people to have surgery to remove them.
- Even healing neurofibromatosis does not cause tumor growth.
- Surgical treatment and radiation therapy can be tested to reduce tumor size.
Neurofibromatosis can be divided into three types
Neurofibromatosis is caused by alterations in certain genes, particularly chromosome 17 and chromosome 22. In addition, rare cases of schwannomatosis appear to be caused by changes in more specific genes such as SMARCB1 and LZTR. All modified genes are important for inhibiting tumor production. and therefore when affected by the development of tumors characteristic of neurofibromatosis.
Even in most diagnosed cases they inherit from priests to children, there are also people who may never have had a case of neurofibromatosis in the family.
Treatment of neurofibromatosis could be hacked by surgery to remove tumors that put pressure on the organs or by radiation therapy to reduce their size, however, no treatment guarantees the cure that prevents the manifestation of new tumors.
In the most severe cases where the patient develops cancer, chemotherapy or radiation therapy may need to be treated for malignant tumors.