Epidemiological Characteristics Of Central Nervous System Tumors In Children: A 5-Year Review of 3,180 Cases From Beijing Tiantan Hospital

Abstract Objective: To describe the epidemiological characteristics of central nervous system tumors in children, based on the neurosurgery department of Beijing Tiantan Hospital. Methods: From January 2015 to December 2019, 3 180 children were histopathologically diagnosed with central nervous system tumors based on the 2016 World Health Organization classification of tumors. Patients were 0 to 15 years old. We analyzed age-related gender preferences, tumor locations and the histological grades of the tumors. In addition, the epidemiological characteristics of the five most common intracranial tumors were compared to the previous studies. Results: In this study, intracranial and spinal tumors account for 96.4% (3 066) and 3.6% (114) of all tumors, with a preponderance of supratentorial tumors (57.9%). Among all pediatric patients, low-grade tumors comprise 67.1% (2 135). The integral gender ratio of males to females is 1.47:1 and the average age of patients is 7.59 years old. The five most common intracranial tumors are craniopharyngioma (15.4%), medulloblastoma (14.3%), pilocytic astrocytoma (11.8%), diffuse astrocytoma (9.8%), and anaplastic ependymoma (4.8%). Conclusions: Due to lack of national data on childhood brain tumors, we used a large nationally representative population sample based on the largest pediatric neurosurgery center in China. We analyzed the data of the past five years, reflecting the incidence of CNS tumors in Chinese children to a certain extent, and laying a data foundation for subsequent clinical studies.