Diffuse brain stem glioma. A review of stereotactic biopsies

The diagnosis and management of diffuse brain stem gliomas (DBSGs) remain a challenging problem for the neurosurgeon and neuro-oncologist. Opposing views on the necessity for biopsy have emerged over the last decade. Open biopsy, with its prohibitive morbidity and mortality, has been replaced by ste...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child's nervous system 1999-05, Vol.15 (5), p.235-7; discussion 238
Main Authors: Cartmill, M, Punt, J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biopsy - methods
Biopsy - mortality
Brain Neoplasms - mortality
Brain Neoplasms - pathology
Brain Stem - pathology
Child
Child, Preschool
Female
Glioma - mortality
Glioma - pathology
Humans
Infant
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - standards
Male
Predictive Value of Tests
Reproducibility of Results
Retrospective Studies
Severity of Illness Index
Stereotaxic Techniques - mortality
Stereotaxic Techniques - standards
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Summary:The diagnosis and management of diffuse brain stem gliomas (DBSGs) remain a challenging problem for the neurosurgeon and neuro-oncologist. Opposing views on the necessity for biopsy have emerged over the last decade. Open biopsy, with its prohibitive morbidity and mortality, has been replaced by stereotactically guided biopsy, with markedly reduced risk. This has been paralleled by improvements in imaging techniques and diagnostic accuracy, which has created reluctance to endorse diagnostic biopsies coupled with the potential of nonrepresentative samples from a heterogeneous tumour mass. For typical DBSGs biopsy is now accepted as unnecessary. We performed a retrospective analysis of radiologically and histologically proven DBSGs in 18 children to assess both morbidity and reliability of our stereotactically guided biopsy procedure.
ISSN:0256-7040
DOI:10.1007/s003810050379