Glioma de tallo cerebral: Reporte de caso

Brainstem gliomas have historically been one of the most difficult pediatric cancers to treat. Tumors arising in the brainstem were once uniformly discounted as surgically resectable lesions. Early neurosurgeons thought this location to be inoperable and fraught with disaster. The advent of computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and sophisticated neurophysiologic monitoring techniques have significantly advanced the surgical treatment of these lesions. Gliomas within the brainstem comprise 10-20% of all pediatric CNS tumors. Brainstem gliomas can occur at any age, although they generally present in childhood, with the mean age of diagnosis at 7 to 9 years. There is no gender predilection. Brainstem gliomas are now recognized as a heterogeneous group of tumors. The classification systems provide a framework to predict growth patterns, surgical resectability and overall prognosis for these heterogeneous tumors. These systems allow the surgeon to better differentiate low-grade tumors from the diffuse inoperable tumor type. We present a case as an example of the approach to these tumours.