Desmoplastic infantile ganglioglioma/astrocytoma with cerebrospinal metastasis.

Desmoplastic infantile ganglioglioma and astrocytoma (DIG/DIA) are rare intracranial tumours of early childhood that involve superficial cerebral cortex and leptomeninges. Despite the large size of the tumour and the presence of poorly differentiated cells, it is believed that the prognosis of DIG/DIA is excellent. We report two patients with DIG/DIA who developed multiple cerebrospinal metastases. To our knowledge only two similar cases have been reported in the literature. It appears that not all tumours with histological features of DIG/DIA behave in a benign way. It is possible that what is called DIG/DIA may be a heterogenous group of tumours with variable biological behaviour.