“Anorexia saved my life”: Coincidental anorexia nervosa and cerebral meningioma

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. © 2001 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 30: 346–349, 2001.