Tumors of the central nervous system in Korea: a multicenter study of 3221 cases

The Neuropathology Study Group of the Korean Society of Pathologists conducted a nationwide collection of central nervous system (CNS) tumors to evaluate the relative frequency in Korea of CNS tumors belonging to the revised World Health Organization (WHO) classification categories. A total of 3221 histologically proven cases of CNS tumors were collected from 13 institutes between 1997 and 1998. All the cases were classified according to the revised WHO histological types and analyzed for the relative frequency, the distribution of age and sex, and location of tumors. The most frequent type of CNS tumors in Korea was meningiomas, followed by pituitary adenoma, glioblastoma, astrocytoma, and schwannoma. Among the pediatric CNS tumors, pilocytic astrocytoma, medulloblastoma, craniopharyngioma, germ cell tumors, and ependymomas were common types of tumors. Compared with a previous nationwide study, the rates for neuronal/glial tumors, glioblastoma, malignant lymphoma, and cystic lesion were increased, and the rate of embryonal tumors was decreased. The overall male to female ratio was 0.9: 1, which may be attributed to the greater number of female-predominate meningiomas and pituitary adenoma. Compared with Western countries, Koreans had higher rates of pituitary adenoma and meningiomas and lower rate of gliomas. The relative frequency of CNS tumors among Koreans is very similar to that reported in Taiwan. The occurrence rates for various subtypes of CNS tumors in Korea are distinct from those in the United States and Europe and similar in many ways to those in Asian and Mexican population.