Brain tumors of early infants.

The authors describe their experience with ten cases of brain tumors in children in whom the onset of symptoms occurred within the first year of life, but who were operated on when they were 2 months to 4 years of age. The series includes 5 gliomas (4 supratentorial, 1 cerebellar; 3 astrocytomas, 1 spongioblastoma, 1 ependymoblastoma), 2 teratomas of the lateral ventricle, and 3 single cases of third ventricle choroid plexus papilloma, temporal lobe sarcoma, and a parasellar craniopharyngioma. Six cases were partially removed, one of them was shunted. Only biopsy was carried out in two, one of which was shunted. The only case of radical removal was a lateral ventricle teratoma; this patient died at operation. Nine patients survived at surgery, three of whom are alive on the 3rd, 4th, and 7th postoperative year. There were two late deaths: one at 2 years (lateral ventricle astrocytoma, which was only biopsied) and one at 7 years and 3 months (spongioblastoma) following surgery. This series from a 40-year period (1933-1973) represents 0.4% of 2,832 brain tumors and 1.9% of 528 brain tumors in the pediatric age. The authors emphasize the need to treat brain tumors in early infancy and insist on the use of radiotherapy and chemotherapy when the lesions are not radically removed at surgery.