© Copyright 2008 by the Society for Neuro-Oncology
Received October 24, 2007
Accepted October 10, 2008
Pediatric giant cell glioblastoma: New insights into a rare tumor entity
Michael Karremann 1,
Sandra Butenhoff 2,
Ulrike Rausche 2,
Torsten Pietsch 3,
Johannes E. A. Wolff 4,
Christof M. Kramm 5*
1 Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany; University Hospital Mannheim, Department of Pediatrics, Mannheim, Germany
2 Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany
3 Department of Neuropathology, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University, Bonn, Germany
4 Division of Pediatrics, Section of Pediatric Neuro-Oncology, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA
5 Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Ernst-Grube-Straße 40, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: christoph.kramm{at}medizin.uni-halle.de.
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Abstract |
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Only little is known about giant cell glioblastoma in pediatric patients. The present study identified 18 pediatric patients with centrally reviewed giant cell glioblastoma (GCG) from the HIT-GBM data base of the Gesellschaft für Paediatrische Onkologie und Haematologie (GPOH) in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Clinical and epidemiological data were compared with those of 178 pediatric patients with centrally reviewed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) from the same source. In this unique series, median age, male preference, and median clinical history did not differ significantly between pediatric GCG and GBM patients. GCG showed a stronger predilection for cerebral hemispheres than GBM which may only partly explain the higher percentage of gross total tumor resections in GCG patients. Most surprisingly, the widely distributed hypothesis that GCG may imply a better prognosis than GBM could not be substantiated for our pediatric series. Future studies with larger patient numbers and molecular pathological analyses are still needed to corroborate the present findings and further elucidate the biology of GCG in children.
Key Words:
adolescents, children, giant cell glioblastoma, glioblastoma multiforme, pediatric
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