Hemorrhagic brain tumors in pediatric patients

In an unselected pediatric series of 113 newly tissue verified intracranial tumors, intracranial hemorrhage was the initial presentation in 10% of the cases. Review of all cases of subarachnoid hemorrhage admitted to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia during the period of 1976--1979 revealed that intracranial tumors were present in 15%. The largest hemorrhagic pathological group was medulloblastoma-primitive neuroectodermal tumors. No particular age predominance was noted. The high incidence of intracranial tumor hemorrhage in this series of pediatric patients suggests that this may be a more common presentation than previously reported.