[Problem of the special pathology of brain tumors]

The post-mortem material of the Erfurt Pathological Institute covering the period from 1953 to 1975 included 1376 primary tumours of the central nervous system, which corresponds to 2.6 per cent of all autopsies and 9.6 per cent of the autospies for malignant tumours. Thus, tumours of the central nervous system show the same frequency as leukoses and lymphomas and tumours of the female genitals and range before the tumours of the colon. The age distribution confirms well known conditions, but shows as apecu liarity that in infancy cerebral tumours occur just as frequently as in childhood and that the frequency of the occurrence of meningiomas before and after the 60th year of life is practically the same; but after that time they are clinically diagnosed in a distinctly less frequent number. Wrong clinical diagnoses were made in 23.5 per cent of the observations. Finally, it is pointed out that the intraoperative picture of the tumours may be misleading and only histological examinations will be helpful.