Abstract
Abstract OBJECTIVE Pediatric brain tumours are the most common solid tumours affecting 30 000-40 000 children per year worldwide. These tumours are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in children and adolescents worldwide. A single-center retrospective audit was performed to establish the characteristics of primary pediatric brain tumours at a tertiary referral hospital in Pretoria, South Africa. The study will help with setting up efficient screening and treatment protocols for pediatric neuro-oncology guarded by the study’s findings. METHODS The results from the analysis of the data recorded for the 29 patients in the study are presented in this chapter. The statistical analysis was descriptive, and all the procedures were performed on SAS (SAS Institute Inc, Cary, NC, USA), Release 9.4. RESULTS The most common age range was 0-4 years, with males (65.5%) affected more than females (34.5%). Headaches were reported in 69% of the patients, and vomiting was observed in 93.1%. Seizures were observed in 27.6% of patients and were associated with supratentorial tumours more than infratentorial tumours. On radiological examination, 45.5% of tumours were supratentorial, and the remainder, 54.5%, were infratentorial. Hydrocephalus was observed in 93.1% of patients and is associated mostly with infratentorial tumours. Pilocytic astrocytomas were the most common histological diagnosis at 20.7%, followed in second place by medulloblastomas and pineoblastomas, both at 10.3%. CONCLUSION The audit results are largely consistent with published literature in terms of gender profile, mean age at diagnosis, common presenting symptoms and signs and common histopathological types of Pediatric Brain Tumours. The small sample size and lack of sufficient clinical data make it difficult to make meaningful conclusions on some of the results.
Published Version
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