Statistical analysis of pineal tumors based on the data of Brain Tumor Registry of Japan.

In this study, we present statistical analyses of pineal tumors based on the data from Brain Tumor Registry of Japan. The most frequent tumor in the pineal region was germinoma, and it accounted for 49.2% of all pineal tumors; it was followed by pineocytoma (8.5%), glioma (6.5%), pineoblastoma (5.1%), malignant teratoma (5.2%) and teratoma (5.1%). Germinoma is most frequent among patients between 10 and 19 years of age, and there are some patients aged >30 years; however, there are few patients with choriocarcinoma, embryonal carcinoma, and yolk sac tumor who are aged >30 years. Pineoblastoma is most frequent among patients under 5 years of age, while pineocytoma is evenly distributed in patients between 10 and 60 years of age. The 5-year survival rate of germinoma was 89.4%, while those of embryonal carcinoma, yolk sac tumor and choriocarcinoma were 35.3, 37.3 and 58.1%, respectively. Copyright (c) 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel.