Pediatric Central nervous system tumors, single institutional experience

Objectives: The characteristics of 144 Iraqi children with primary CNS tumors were reviewed to identify median age at presentation, the disease distribution in terms of gender, main presenting symptoms, most common grade and histological subtypes, with predominant subsites in which central nervous system malignancies arise from, according to WHO 2016 classification. Patients and methods: Medical records were used to collect data on primary CNS malignancies in children under the age of 18 years, in a single tertiary center in Kurdistan/Iraq, Zhianawa cancer center, the study time period was from March 2009 to December 2021 (12 years period study). We classified age into 5 sub-groups: (Infancy) less than 1, 1-4 years old, 5-9 years old, 10-14 years old and above 15. Results: The study showed that, males were more frequently affected than females, median age at diagnosis was 8.7 years old, predominate age group was (5-9) %38, followed by (10-14) 24.3%. Medulloblastoma which is grade IV tumor was the most common histopathology subtype in 30% of the cases, followed by Astrocytoma and Brain stem glioma as the 2nd and 3rd histopathology. Infratentorial location was the most common involved location in central nervous system (57.6%), followed by supratentorial (40.3%), spinal cord (%2.08) only. Conclusion: Pediatric CNS tumors in this study have specific characteristics when compared to those seen elsewhere in the world. Grade IV and infratentorial location for example, are the most common in our children.