Dorsally exophytic glioblastoma of the pons

Brainstem gliomas are rare tumours in adults, accounting for only 1%-2% of all intracranial gliomas. They are recognised as a heterogeneous group, in which most are malignant tumours. Brainstem gliomas are classified into four major groups according to the growth pattern on imaging, namely diffuse, focal, exophytic and cervicomedullary. Such a classification system is also useful for surgical decision making. The exophytic variant is extremely rare having anecdoctal reports in the literature. We report the case of an adult patient affected by an exophytic glioblastoma of the pons, which was submitted to subtotal resection followed by radiation therapy and chemotherapy with a longer overall survival. To the best of our knowledge, this is the seventh adult patient reported of an exophytic brainstem glioblastoma.