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Intracranial ependymomas of childhood: current management strategies
1Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143-0112, USA. smythm@neurosurg.ucsf.edu
Insights
Outcomes for childhood intracranial ependymomas remain poor, with a 5-year survival rate around 50% despite advances. This review covers surgical techniques, epidemiology, and molecular markers to improve future treatment strategies.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric neuro-oncology
- Neurosurgery
- Cancer research
Background:
- Intracranial ependymomas in children have poor prognoses despite low-grade histology.
- Current treatments yield only a 50% 5-year survival rate.
- Advances in diagnosis and treatment have not significantly improved outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review current surgical resection techniques for pediatric intracranial ependymomas.
- To focus on recent studies concerning epidemiology, molecular markers, and prognostic factors.
- To discuss implications for current and future management strategies.
Main Methods:
- Literature review of recent studies.
- Analysis of technical aspects of microneurosurgical resection.
- Synthesis of data on epidemiology, molecular markers, and prognostic factors.
Main Results:
- Despite aggressive treatment, 5-year survival remains suboptimal.
- Identification of key prognostic factors and molecular markers is crucial.
- Current management strategies require further refinement.
Conclusions:
- Improved surgical techniques and adjuvant therapies are needed.
- Understanding molecular markers can personalize treatment.
- Further research is essential to enhance survival rates for childhood intracranial ependymomas.
Abstract:
Children with intracranial ependymomas have relatively poor outcomes despite the low-grade histology of these tumors and recent advances in diagnosis, microneurosurgical resection, and adjuvant therapy. Aggressive surgical resection and postoperative adjuvant therapy result in only a 5-year survival rate of 50%. In this paper, we provide a review of the current technical aspects of surgical resection, and focus on recent studies of the epidemiology, molecular markers, prognostic factors and adjuvant therapy for childhood intracranial ependymomas and discuss their implications for current and future management strategies.