LAUSR

Object The purpose of this study is to investigate clinical, pathological, and prognostic discrepancies between infantile and non-infantile desmoplastic astrocytoma / ganglioglioma patients. METHODS From January 2012 to Dec 2019, we retrospectively reviewed patients younger than 18 years who underwent craniotomies at Beijing Tiantan Hospital. Patients diagnosed with desmoplastic infantile astrocytoma and ganglioglioma were included. RESULTS The group consisted of 9 infantile patients and 8 non-infantile patients. The mean age of onset was 30.11 months in infantile patients and 103.75 months in non-infantile patients. Comparing with infantile patients, non-infantile patients had a mild female predominance (p = 0.335). The most common presentation in non-infantile patients was seizure (n = 4, 50 %), whereas abnormal head circumference (n = 3, 33.3 %) was main course in infantile group. All cases showed a ki-67 index lower than 2%. Preoperative tumor volume in infantile patients (213.98 cm3) was larger than that in non-infantile patients (21.99 cm3) (p = 0.043). Gross total resection was achieved in 5 (55.6%) infantile patients and 6 (75%) non-infantile patients (p = 0.62). All patients are alive by last follow-up visit and one infantile patient recurred 8 months postoperative. CONCLUSIONS Infantile and non-infantile patients with DIA/DIGs share similar clinical and histopathological features. Compared with infantile patients, non-infantile patients tend to have different symptoms predominance. Lesions in non-infantile patients are prone to present with different cystic-solid patterns and smaller volume. Patients with DIA/DIGs have favorable prognosis regardless extent of resection.