Experiences with the management of plexiform neurofibroma.

482 PEDIATRICS, September i959 P LEXIFORM NEUROFIBROMA is a subject which presents many very interesting problems which have been discussed only sporadically in the literature. The most striking finding in the start of a search for a concise presentation of the disease is the difficulty in uncovering an apt description of either gross or microscopic picture. We have collected here a brief resume of the clinical and pathologic problem with a report of 11 cases treated at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Thomson in 1900’ wrote the most cornplete review of the problem and classified plexiform neurofibroma as one of the most interesting types of neurofibroma. It is but one of the manifestations of diffuse neurofibromatosis or von Recklinghausen’s disease, being given the descriptive name because of the characteristic gross appearance of this benign tumor wherever it appears. Typically, the growth is in the distnibution of one or more contiguous, usually