Histological subtypes of symptomatic central nervous system tumours in Singapore

The objective was to identify the different subtypes of symptomatic CNS tum ours that are encountered in Singapore. Our hospital pathology and operativ e records from 1994 to 1998 were reviewed and information regarding all pat ients who underwent biopsy or resection as part of their diagnostic and the rapeutic evaluation was extracted. Only histologically confirmed tumours we re included in this analysis. Meningiomas made up the largest subgroup of t umours, accounting for 35.1% of all tumours. In order of decreasing frequen cy, the remaining most often reported histologies were pituitary adenomas ( 11.8%), secondary neoplasms (10%), tumours of nerve sheath (9.4%), glioblas toma multiforme (9.3%), astrocytomas including anaplastic, diffuse and pilo cytic (9.2%), primary CNS lymphomas (2.9%), oligodendrogliomas (2.2%), hema ngioblastomas (2.2%), craniopharyngiomas (1.7%), and embryonal tumours (1.2 %). Genetic and environmental factors may be responsible for the proportion ately higher than expected percentage of meningiomas seen and further study is required to identify these factors.