Role of computed tomography in the evaluation of pediatric brain tumor

A total of forty two clinically diagnosed pediatric brain tumors were studied over a period of twoyears. The study was aimed to evaluate the efficacy of computed tomography (CT) in pre-operativediagnosis of pediatric brain tumors by correlating the imaging findings with postoperativehistopathological findings. Site, density, mass effect and contrast enhancement of the lesion werestudied as primary efficacy variables of CT scan. In the present study, the common pediatric braintumors were astrocytoma, medulloblastoma, craniopharyngioma and ependymoma. In 18(42.9%) casesthe tumors were supratentorial and in 24 (57.1%), they were infratentorial in location. The findings ofCT scan in different intracranial neoplasm strongly correlated with those of histopathology. Thevalidity tests for CT scan were found to be 88.9% sensitive, 100% specific and about 95% accurate indiagnosing astrocytoma. Similarly the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for medulloblastoma were100%, 96.9% and 97.7% respectively. For craniopharyngioma the values were 85.7%, 100% and97.7% respectively. The study concludes that CT is an invaluable imaging modality in preoperativediagnosis of pediatric brain tumor due to its excellent characterization of tumors.