Spinal cord gliomas.

Characteristics of spinal cord gliomas Spinal cord gliomas comprised 20% of intraspinal tumors of all types in a large surgical series (Table 1) [1]. These tumors share several characteristics with cerebral gliomas. Spinal gliomas use the same histopathological classi®cation as gliomas of the cerebral hemispheres, such as astrocytoma and ependymoma. Determination of tumor grade is useful in predicting clinical behavior [2]. Diffuse ®brillary astrocytomas of the spinal cord are in®ltrative, with signi®cant limitations for resectability, whereas pilocytic astrocytomas and ependymomas are well-circumscribed lesions.