Never Too Old? Occurrence of Medulloblastoma in the Elderly beyond the 70th Year of Life

Abstract

The occurrence of medulloblastoma (MB) in the elderly is an absolutely rare event. Concerning this issue we report on two MB patients beyond the 70th year of life. Two patients older than 70 years presented with a mass in the posterior fossa without evidence of a preexisting malignant tumor. After careful radiological work-up the suspected diagnosis was metastasis of an unknown primary tumor. Both patients underwent surgery and histopathological analysis revealed MB in both cases (classical MB and desmoplastic type). The two cases presented here represent also one classical MB and one additional desmoplastic MB. To our knowledge we report for the first time that there are different molecular subtypes of MB in the elderly patients that seem to be consistent with those subtypes mainly occurring in young adults. Unfortunately the patients died within one week after surgery due to respiratory insufficiency and an unclear cause. The presented cases show that MB can occur in the elderly. Although this constellation is absolutely rare, MB should be considered in the differential diagnosis, especially when a primary tumor is not known or detected.