Central nervous system tumors among Koreans--a statistical study on 697 cases.

A total of 697 cases of intracranial and intraspinal tumors was obtained from the pathology file of Seoul National University Hospital and Children's Hospital during the period of 8 years from 1980 to 1987. These tumors were classified according to WHO classification. This study was performed to understand the recent trend of the relative frequency of the central nervous system tumors among Koreans and to compare it with the previous studies in Korea and other countries. There were 663 intracranial tumors and 34 intraspinal tumors. More common intracranial tumors were pituitary adenoma, meningioma, astrocytoma and medulloblastoma, each representing 23.4%, 20.8%, 11.8%, and 5.6%, respectively. In juvenile age group (under 15 years of age), medulloblastoma, astrocytoma, ependymoma and craniopharyngioma were more commonly encountered to be 25.6%, 21.6%, 13.6% and 12%, respectively. Both sexes were equally affected among adult group, but male preponderance was observed among juvenile group (1.49:1). Nine cases of primitive neuroectodermal tumor, a unique tumor which is not listed in WHO classification, were observed and all of them occurred before the age of 20. There were 27 metastatic tumors. Our previous study encompassing previous 17 years, 1963 to 1979, showed similar overall results except for intraspinal tumors that were more commonly encountered in previous series.