**22. Conclusion**

Since brain tumours are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children, the focus lies on how effectively they can be treated. Surgery plays a major role and can be curative in a number of tumours including pilocytic astrocytoma. Radiotherapy is curative in cases of PNET and ependymoma.

The survival and long-term outcome of patients with brain tumors will continue to enhance with future advances in nonsurgical methods, molecular and translational oncology research. For longer survival and reduced morbidity, new molecular diagnostics and new therapies such as immunotherapy, gene therapy and stem cell therapy may be promising.

**165**

**Author details**

and Deepti Sharma2

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*

\*Address all correspondence to: drdeeptisharma16@gmail.com

1 Department of Radiation Oncology, MAMC and Lok Nayak Hospital, New Delhi,

2 Department of Radiation Oncology, Max Super Speciality Hospital, New Delhi,

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

Neha Sharma1

India

India

*An Overview of Pediatric CNS Malignancies DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88189* *An Overview of Pediatric CNS Malignancies DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88189*

*Current Cancer Treatment*

**Table 7.**

**21. Craniopharyngioma**

*WHO pathological grades of ependymoma.*

lus or compress the optic tracts.

produce neurological deficit.

surgical resection [83].

cell therapy may be promising.

**22. Conclusion**

children).

The current treatment of choice for pediatric patients with cranial ependymoma

**Tumour type Grade** Subependymoma (benign) myxopapillary ependymoma I Ependymoma II Anaplastic ependymoma III

They are low histological grade (WHO I) tumours which arise from epithelial remnants of rathke's pouch. They are usually located in sellar or parasellar location with an overall incidence of 0.5–2.0 new cases per million of the population per

Craniopharyngimas can present with nonspecific symptoms like headache and

Intrasellar lesions can compress the pituitary gland and hypothalamus involving the hypothalamic-pituitary axes in 52–87% cases, leading to endocrine defects, particularly deficits in the secretion of growth hormone (75% of cases), gonadotropins

Prechiasmal lesions may compress the optic pathway, leading to visual field cuts, decreased central visual acuity or vision impairment (62–84% of cases in

Retrochiasmal lesions may grow into the third ventricle and cause hydrocepha-

Craniopharyngiomas can cause direct impingement of brain parenchyma and

In case of localized tumours the preferred choice of treatment is complete resection with preservation of visual, pituitary and hypothalamic function [82]. In case of incomplete resection, there are chances of residual tumour progression in 71–90% of patients, whereas the rate of progression after incomplete resection followed by radiotherapy is 21%. Therefore radiotherapy is recommended after

Since brain tumours are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children, the focus lies on how effectively they can be treated. Surgery plays a major role and can be curative in a number of tumours including pilocytic astrocytoma.

The survival and long-term outcome of patients with brain tumors will continue to enhance with future advances in nonsurgical methods, molecular and translational oncology research. For longer survival and reduced morbidity, new molecular diagnostics and new therapies such as immunotherapy, gene therapy and stem

Radiotherapy is curative in cases of PNET and ependymoma.

is resection, if possible, followed by radiation therapy alone [80].

year, and constitute 1.2–4.0% of all childhood intracranial tumors.

(40%), adrenocorticotropic hormone (25%) and TSH (25%) [81].

Symptoms depend upon the location of the tumour:

nausea due to increased intracranial pressure.

**164**
