Intracranial ganglioglioma: clinicopathological and MRI findings in 16 patients
Introduction
Ganglioglioma is a relatively uncommon tumour of the central nervous system (CNS), accounting for 0.4–0.9% of all intracranial neoplasms and 1–4% of paediatric CNS tumours.1, 2 It contains both mature neuronal and glial neoplastic elements. Gangliogliomas have been reported to arise in virtually any part of the brain,3 the most common site being the temporal lobes.4 Most gangliogliomas have a benign clinical course. Some low-grade gangliogliomas seem to behave aggressively and patients with anaplastic ganglioglioma have been reported.5 The favourable prognosis associated with ganglioglioma makes early recognition important for treatment and patient counselling.6
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Materials and methods
A retrospective review of brain tumours in the pathology archives of our institution from the years 2000 to 2005 revealed 20 cases of ganglioglioma. Four of these patients were excluded from this study because of the absence of computed tomography (CT) or MRI data. This retrospective study was performed with the approval of the review board and ethics committee of our institution.
The patient group consisted of 16 patients (11 male and five female), with an age range of 12–53 years (mean 34.1 ±
Clinical features
The clinical findings at the time of presentation and the patient history for all 16 patients are summarized in Table 1. Five patients presented with seizures and tics. Twelve cases were preoperatively misdiagnosed as gliomas, the remaining four cases were mistakenly diagnosed as astrocytoma, meningioma, haemangioblastoma, or germinoma.
Follow-up was measured from the date of surgery and ranged from 4–36 months. Follow-up data were not available in two patients, because they did not survive the
Discussion
The most common location for a ganglioglioma is the temporal lobe but this malignancy can be found in virtually any location of the brain or the spinal cord.6 Less frequent locations within the cerebral hemisphere are (in order of decreasing frequency): the frontal, parietal, and occipital lobes. Gangliogliomas arising in the pineal region, optical nerve, trigeminal nerve, ventricles, cerebellum, brain stem, thalamus, sella, or the cerebellopontine angle have also been reported.7, 8, 9, 10, 11,
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