Intracranial meningeal tumours in childhood: A clinicopathologic study including MIB-1 immunohistochemistry

Primary tumours of the meninges with a relatively high tendency for maligna nt behaviour are uncommon in childhood. This study concerns 18 cases of men ingeal tumours in children under the age of 16, of which 13 were meningioma s and five were other tumours arising in the meninges. Meningiomas showed a preponderance in females as in adult series, and the majority were suprate ntorial in localisation. The percentage of meningeal tumours and meningioma s among all brain tumours in our centre were 3.72% and 2.69%, respectively. Four out of 13 meningiomas were fibroblastic, four were transitional, one was meningothelial, two were psammomatous and two were papillary meningioma s. Seven (38.8%) out of 18 tumours showed anaplastic features, including tw o papillary meningiomas, two hemangiopericytomas, one mesenchymal chondrosa rcoma, one pleomorphic sarcoma and one anaplastic meningeal tumour. Papilla ry meningiomas with hemangiopericytoma-like solid areas were seen frequentl y in our cases (15.3%). Meningoangiomatosis was associated with two meninge al tumours. MIB 1 (Ki-67) labelling indices (LIs) ranged between 0% and 13, 6% (mean 1.83%) in benign, and between 1% and 20% (mean 7.2%) in malignant tumour, including papillary meningiomas. Mean MIB-1 LIs were 5.61% and 1.14 % in non-recurrent and recurrent cases, respectively. MIB-1 LIs showed sign ificant differences between benign and malignant meningeal rumours but no s ignificant correlation either with prognosis or recurrence.