Astroblastoma: report of a case with microsatellite analysis

A 5-year-old girl who developed progressive headache, vomiting, and left hemiparesis was found to have a cystic tumor with an enhanced mural nodule in the right frontoparietal region on a computed tomography examination. The lesion was histologically and ultrastructurally verified as an astroblastoma, an uncommon neuroepithelial tumor of uncertain origin. Molecular analysis using 17 microsatellite markers on chromosomes 9, 10, 11, 17, 19, and 22 showed loss of heterozygosity at the D19S412 locus on the long arm of chromsome 19. This observation suggests that there is a tumor suppressor gene in this chromosomal region, which plays a role in the pathogenesis of astroblastoma.