Spectrum of pediatric brain tumors: a report of 341 cases from a tertiary cancer center in India.

Abstract

Brain tumors are the second most common cancers after hematological malignancies accounting for approximate 21% of all childhood malignancies in children between ages of 0 and 14 y. The present study was undertaken to determine the spectrum of the brain tumors diagnosed in a tertiary cancer center in South India. A retrospective analysis of the data of pediatric brain tumors diagnosed between 2003 and 2009 was done and data was classified according to the age, gender and histology types. Out of 2,844 pediatric patients, 341 (11.99%) were diagnosed as having brain tumors. Most of the patients were in the age group of >5-14 y. Male to female ratio was 1.58:1. The most common pediatric brain tumor was medulloblastoma followed by astrocytoma and ependymoma. Glioblastoma multiforme was the most common subtype of astrocytoma. Other common tumors were glioma, oligodendroglioma, periphereral neuroectodermal tumor and germ cell tumor. As compared to western data, incidence of brain tumors in children was found to be less in the present study.