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Astroblastoma in childhood: pathological and clinical analysis
Ramon Navarro1, Aaron J Reitman, Guillermo A de León
1Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery, Falk Brain Tumor Center, Children's Memorial Hospital, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL 60614, USA.
Object:
The object was to describe the clinical, radiologic, and pathologic features of astroblastomas in an unselected group of children who were treated in a single institution during an 11-year period.
Methods:
Eight children with astroblastomas of the brain were examined. Diagnosis was based on cell morphology, vascular attachment of the cell main process, lack of an epithelial-free surface differentiation, and poor intercellular cohesiveness. In addition to sections, tumor smears and electron microscopy were required for demonstrating or confirming such features.
Conclusions:
Clinical findings seem to confirm an apparent predilection of astroblastomas for younger children (median age of onset, 5 years) and the existence of two prognostically different types of tumor-well differentiated (low grade) and anaplastic (high grade). Microscopic findings suggest a closer resemblance of tumor cells to astroblasts rather than to "tanycytes" or ependymal cells. It seems, however, that anaplastic astroblasts have a tendency to evolve toward, or be associated with, less differentiated cells, either neuroepithelial or sarcomatous.
