Abstract

IntroductionHerein we utilize national registry data to evaluate the epidemiology of primary and secondary pediatric brain tumors according to the WHO2016 classification. MethodsPediatric patients (age≤14) presenting between 2004–2017 with a brain tumor were identified by ICD-O-3 and brain metastasis (2010–2017) coding from the National Cancer Database (comprising >70% of newly-diagnosed cancers in the U.S.), and categorized by NICHD age stages: infant (<1yr; n=1,686), toddler (1-2yrs; n=1,732), early- (2-5yrs; n=6,712), middle- (6-11yrs; n=9,175), and late- (12-14yrs; n=5,042) childhood. Patients’ age, sex, race/ethnicity, and overall survival, and tumor location and size were evaluated by WHO2016 tumor type. Results24,347 pediatric brain tumor patients were identified. Overall, other astrocytic tumors (24% of females, 20% of males), diffuse astrocytic/oligodendroglial gliomas (23% of females, 21% of males – 64% of which were midline), embryonal (13% of females, 19% of males), and sellar region tumors (12% of females, 8% of males) predominated. Embryonal tumors prevailed in infancy (24%) and toddlerhood (24%), declining to 9% in late childhood; only 40% were female. Ependymal tumors peaked at 15% in toddlerhood (6% overall), whereas choroid plexus tumors peaked at 11% in infancy (1.9% overall). A minority of brain tumors were of neuronal & mixed neuronal-glial (6.1%), germ cell (3.8%), cranial nerve (3.2%), mesenchymal non-meningothelial (2.4%), meningioma (1.6%), pineal (1.1%), hematological/histiocytic (0.5%), and other glioma (0.2%) types. Brain metastases were rare (1.5% overall; from 4.0% in infancy to 0.8% in late childhood; and only 41% were female) – 61% came from adrenal neuroblastoma, 16% from sarcomas, and 6% from malignant rhabdoid tumors/extracranial AT/RT. ConclusionsPediatric brain metastases overwhelmingly originate from adrenal neuroblastoma. Although, overall, diffuse astrocytic/oligodendroglial, other astrocytic, embryonal, and sellar region tumors predominate among pediatric brain tumors, together they only comprise 70% of cases and their distribution varies substantially by patients’ age and sex.

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