A retrospective clinical evaluation of brainstem gliomas

Abstract

Twelve cases of brainstem gliomas are reviewed in this report. Ten of these cases were patients with diffuse pontine glioma, while the other 2 were medullary tumors. The mean age of the patients at the time of diagnosis was 27 years. Eight of the patients were adults and 4 were children. Overall, the median time to progression was 26 weeks and the median survival time was 71 weeks. Eleven patients who had died at the time of their last follow-up were divided into 2 groups based on the median survival time: 1) Long-term survivors (LTS), or patients who survived more than 71 weeks after the initial diagnosis, and 2) Short-term survivors (STS), or patients who survived 71 weeks or less than 71 weeks after the initial diagnosis. There were some features differentiating the LTS and STS groups. As to the patient's age, 5 of 7 adult patients were LTS and all of the child patients were STS. Of the 6 patients who had enhanced lesions in their initial CT/MRI, 5 of them were STS. Five of the 6 patients whose symptoms had a duration of more than 1 month were LTS. On the other hand, All the 5 patients with a duration of symptoms of less than 1 month was STS.