Epidemiological features of Central Nervous System tumors at MAHAK Pediatric Cancer Treatment and Research Center

Background: In this study, we examined the epidemiologic characteristics of childhood brain tumors in patients referred to MAHAK Pediatric Cancer Treatment and Research Center (one of the main national referral centers for childhood malignancies in Iran) for treatment. Materials and Methods: This cohort (simple sampling) study consisted of 198 children less than 15 year old with CNS tumor referred to MAHAK Pediatric Cancer Treatment and Research Center from 2007 to 2010. The unique checklist contained epidemiological features filled for each individual. Results: Out of studied patients 125(63.1%) were male and 73(36.9%) were female. The mean age of patients was 6.11±3.65 years. Tumors were located in supratentorial (N=60, 30.3%), infratentorial (N=134, 67.7%) and spinal (N=4, 2%) regions. High-grade glioma and medulloblastoma were the most common tumors in supratentorial and infratentorial locations respectively. The majority of patientin medulloblastoma group had T2M0 (N=44, 22.2%) stage. Thirty-one (15.7%) patients had arelapse. There were 38.4% treatment and 41.4% death. The five years survival rate among patients was 28%. Conclusion: The same frequency of CNS tumors in children less than 15 years old referred to MPCTRC was observed compared to other studies. The sex incidence, the mean age at presentation, tumor sites, brain tumor’s pathologies, signs and symptoms, metastases and relapses were also in line with other studies. There were significant differences in terms of high consanguinity rate and high incidence of familial cancer history as compared to reports from others.