Neural Networks

High-tech operating room helps reclaim a life 

In just three months, 17-year-old Harrison Linsky went from being a picture-perfect high school junior to a lethargic, reclusive teenager. Starting in September of 2009 with what seemed like a normal cold—a runny nose and cough—Harrison’s health began to rapidly deteriorate.

Over time, the captain of the Garces Memorial High School football team and star student developed seizures, short-term memory loss and continuous headaches so painful that all he wanted to do was sit in a dark room.

When it came to the point where he could only remember five minutes of his 75-minute class, and he had to leave school early every day, Harrison’s parents wondered if he’d suffered a concussion during a football game. “Harrison plays the line,” explains his mother, Jeannene Linsky. “I remember watching him at a game thinking he looked like he was moving in slow motion, as if he were slugging through mud.”

Jeannene quickly arranged an appointment with their doctor in California, who ordered an MRI scan that showed a tiny lesion on his right frontal lobe. The family was referred to UCSF Medical Center (UCSF), where they diagnosed Harrison with an infiltrating lesion/mass, likely a low-grade glioma. Because it was so small, they were not confident that the tiny mass was producing such dramatic symptoms.

Further, because of its location, surgery would be risky. UCSF recommended waiting a few months to reassess the situation. “Our son was so active,” says Jeannene, “and his life had completely changed. It was impossible as a parent to do nothing.”

So Todd Linsky, Harrison’s father, researched top pediatric neuroscience centers and contacted Nicole Ullrich, MD, PhD, a pediatric neurologist at Children’s Hospital Boston, for a second opinion. Working with the family, Ullrich collected relevant personal data and diagnostic scans to present at the Pediatric Brain Tumor Program’s weekly Brain Tumor Conference, attended regularly by nearly 25 specialists including pediatric neurologists, neurosurgeons, neuro-oncologists, radiologists and radiation therapists, among others, from Children’s and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

“This multidisciplinary Brain Tumor Conference gives us the ability to capitalize on our collective expertise,” she says. “We consider everything—symptoms, pathology reports, imaging scans, available technologies and treatments, information from families  and potential outcomes—in making treatment decisions.”