Neonatal tumors of the CNS: a report of 9 cases and a review

Neonatal central nervous system (CNS) tumors are an uncommon and histologic ally heterogeneous group of neoplasms with different clinical and biologica l features from those arising in childhood. We report 9 cases in which a di agnosis of CNS tumor was confirmed by biopsy or autopsy during the years 19 82 - 1997 in the Vall d'Hebron Children's Hospital, Barcelona. Two cases we re fetal tumors detected by fetal sonography, 3 patients were symptomatic i n the first days after birth and 4 patients presented initial clinical sign s in the first weeks or months of life. Eight lesions were supratentorial a nd 1 was located in the spinal cord. According to histologic types, there w ere 2 glioneuronal tumors, 1 anaplastic astrocytoma, 1 choroid plexus carci noma, 1 immature teratoma, 1 craniopharyngioma, 1 hemangioblastoma, I astro blastoma and 1 hemangioendothelioma. Extensive review of the literature ind icates that our cases of hemangioblastoma, astroblastoma and hemangioendoth elioma are exceptional and one more of the very rare and isolated previousl y published cases.