Anaplastic ependymoma in children--increasing incidence?

During 1988 and 1989, 16 cases of ependymomas were diagnosed at the Department of Pathology, University Hospital "Sestre milosrdnice", Zagreb. The specimens were obtained from the Department of Neurosurgery of the same hospital. Seven tumors out of these 16 were supratentorial, four of them being diagnosed as anaplastic ependymomas. At the time of the first operation, patients with anaplastic ependymoma were aged 2 to 18 years, and there were three man and one woman. The criteria for this diagnosis were cellular pleomorphism and anaplasia, vascular hyperplasia with marked endothelial proliferation, and the most important of all, the presence of numerous mitoses. Necroses, cystic degenerations and bleeding were found in all four tumors. The aim of this study is the survey of morphology, tumor localisation and patient's age at the moment of diagnosis as relevant factors for the prognosis of these tumors. It seems significant to indicate a relatively great number of these tumors in only a two-year period in one hospital, while statistical data reported in the literature have been taken from several institutions in various towns or states for much longer period of even several decades. Hence, this study could be in favour of the idea presented in the recent literature data, that this tumor type is increasing.