Incidence of Childhood Brain Tumors in Syria (1993–2002)

Abstract

Objective: To determine whether the incidence and location of childhood CNS tumors in Syria follows the same pattern described in Western and Far Eastern countries. Patients and Methods: We analyzed the data compiled from 367 children with brain tumors operated on in our Department of Neurosurgery between 1993 and mid-2002. We excluded all vascular and metastatic lesions and adopted the latest WHO classification in grouping all glial tumors. Results: We found that 47% of brain tumors were located in the supratentorial, and 53% in the infratentorial region. The ratio of male to female occurrence was 1:1.2 (52% males, 48% females). For lesions in the supratentorial space, the distribution was 56% males and 44% females, while in the posterior fossa, the distribution was 61% males and 39% females. Low-grade tumors (WHO I/II) constituted 53.5% of all lesions, and the rest were high grade tumors (WHO III/IV) 46.5%.The most common tumor found in our childhood population was medulloblastoma (27.5%), followed by astrocytoma (25.8%), then craniopharyngioma (14.1%). The most common tumor in the posterior fossa was medulloblastoma (53.5%), followed by astrocytoma (22.5%), then ependymoma (17%). The most common tumors in the supratentorial space were astrocytoma and craniopharyngioma. Conclusions: In our patient population, the incidence and distribution of CNS tumors were somehow different than those reported by authors from the Western and Far Eastern countries. Whether these results are unique to Syria, or reflect a regional difference in the disease distribution between the Middle East region and the rest of the world, remains to be determined.

Posterior cranial FOSSA space occupying lesions: an institutional experience

“…7 Medulloblastoma was the most common tumor seen in children (13%) in our study which is similar to many other studies. 8 Certain tumors are common in adults and certain tumors are common in adults which were observed in our study. Meningiomas are commonly seen in adults than in childhood which is consistent with our study.…”

“…Meningiomas are commonly seen in adults than in childhood which is consistent with our study. 3,8,9 In our study, 66% of cases were seen in adults. In our study, complete resection was done in 17 cases, complete resection was very difficult in these cases because of their location (Figure 4).…”

Epidemiology of Nervous System Tumors in Children: A Survey of 1,485 Cases in Beijing Tiantan Hospital from 2001 to 2005

“…This insight, to some degree, was embodied in the revised World Health Organization (WHO) 2000 classification of nervous system tumors, which included the recognition of novel pathologic entities and variants as well as the deletion of some previously described variants [1]. Several studies of the epidemiology of childhood neurological neoplasms using the latest classification scheme have been conducted [2,3,4]. However, to date, no detailed survey has been conducted on the epidemiology of neurological tumors in children from China, a developing country with the largest population in the world.…”

Histological types of the primary intracranial tumors among children in Dammam, Saudi Arabia

“…This result reflects the variation in the distribution of brain tumors between population where a study from Syria [22] demonstrated that the most common tumor found in Syrian children was medulloblastoma (27.5%), followed by astrocytoma (25.8%) then craniopharyngioma (14.1%).…”