The clinical treatment of brain tumours in children is undergoing a revolution because of new scanning techniques; i.e. ever more illuminating non-invasive brain imaging of several kinds. The medics caring for these children now have a far better understanding of what the tumour is and where it is — and so can provide far more effective treatments.

Dr Andrew Peet is at the forefront of research in this area, and is a clinician too, being both a Clinical Research Fellow and Honorary Consultant Paediatric Oncologist at the University of Birmingham and the Oncology Department at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

His research is on new scanning techniques and, in his contribution to The New Optimists, he explains how CT scans provided the first breakthrough, and now how magnetic resonance spectroscopy and other complementary functional imaging techniques are revolutionising both our understanding and the treatment of brain tumours.