Pilocytic astrocytoma (WHO grade I) is a circumscribed, slowly growing, benign astrocytoma that most frequently develops in the cerebellar hemispheres and in midline structures and occurs predominantly in childhood and adolescence. In contrast to diffusely infiltrating gliomas in adults (e.g. grade II astrocytomas, oligodendrogliomas), survival of patients with pilocytic astrocytoma is excellen...

BACKGROUND Low grade gliomas are the most common brain tumor in children. Tandem duplication involving the KIAA1549 and the BRAF kinase genes results in a gene fusion that has been recently characterized in a subset of low grade glioma While there is no clear evidence that the KIAA1549-BRAF gene fusion has an effect on prognosis, it is an attractive target for therapy development and as a diagn...

A 33-year-old male presented with syncopal attacks. He had a history of slowly progressive deterioration of visual acuity in both eyes. His visual deterioration began in the left eye at age 12 years and in the right eye at age 20 years. His left eye was completely blind by age 33 years. He had received no prior treatment for these visual disturbances. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging on admissio...

BACKGROUND/AIMS The majority of pediatric patients with cerebellar neoplasms harbor pilocytic astrocytomas (PAs), medulloblastomas, or ependymomas. Knowledge of a preoperative likelihood of histopathology in this group of patients has the potential to influence many aspects of care. Previous studies have demonstrated hyperintensity on diffusion-weighted imaging to correlate with medulloblastoma...

This study was performed to determine the relationship between p57/Kip2 and the growth of human astrocytomas. Immunohistochemical staining for p57/Kip2, p53, p16, and Ki67 antigen was performed on paraffin-embedded tissue specimens obtained from 36 patients with astrocytoma. Expression of p57/Kip2, p53, p16, and Ki67 antigen was generally increased in association with the astrocytoma tumor grad...

Although hydrocephalus affects approximately 80% of children with a posterior fossa tumor, its impact on neurodevelopmental outcomes remains unclear. We investigated the effects of hydrocephalus severity on the development of cognitive, motor, academic, and attention skills in 15 children with cerebellar injury after treatment for a tumor sustained during preschool years. Significant impairment...

Spontaneous cerebellar haematomas in previously well children are most often caused by haemorrhage from small angiomas. Eight such cases in children 12 years of age or younger have been reported previously. Their clinical course was usually not as acute as the course most commonly seen in adults, and four of the children survived after evacuation of the haematoma. Two additional cases are prese...

Using diffusion tensor imaging, we conducted an exploratory investigation of the relationship between white matter tract microstructure and age in 200 healthy adult subjects using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). Though most tracts showed the slight decline in microstructural organization with age widely noted, in both superior cerebellar peduncles (SCP) it correlated positively with age,...

Recurrent, site-specific chromosome translocations and other cytogenetic abnormalities are being described in ever-increasing numbers and types of human tumors. Primary brain tumors are the most common pediatric solid tumor and differ from those of adults in both histology and clinical behavior. We examined chromosomes from 21 primary pediatric brain neoplasms grown in short-term tissue culture...

Doppel (Dpl) is a paralogue of the mammalian Prion (PrP) protein. It is abundant in testis and, unlike PrP, it is expressed at low levels in the adult central nervous system (CNS). Besides, Dpl overexpression correlates with some prion-disease pathological features, such as ataxia and death of cerebellar neurons. Recently, ectopic expression of doppel was found in two different tumor types, spe...