Radiotherapy in brain-stem gliomas in children

Twenty-one children with brain-stem glioma are discussed. Sixteen received radiotherapy and five were too sick to be irradiated. The mean survival was 3.4 weeks for the non-irradiated group and 8.7 months for the treated group, two of the latter being still alive five and ten months after diagnosis. From the literature and our cases the effect of radiotherapy in brain-stem glioma in childhood is not clear. Differences in patient-selection criteria and the mode and doses of irradiation between the reported series may account for the divergent results, but in our cases radiotherapy did not prolong survival as significantly as compared with the reported series. Elevated intracranial pressure is not rare in patients with a brain-stem glioma, as may be concluded from the present series and from the literature.