ABSTRACT
The aim of the present work was to study the epidemiological pattern of brain tumours in children in Alexandria, to study the characteristics of each pathological type and to compare pediatric brain tumours with adult ones. Records of children under 15 years of age diagnosed as brain tumours during the last five years period at the Neurosurgery Department, Alexandria University Hospital were selected. The age of the studied cases ranged from 8 months to 15 years with a mean age of 9.52 +/- 4.33 years. Out of the total cases, 103 [53.4%] were males, slightly higher than females [46.6%]. Male to female ratio was 1.14:1. The present study revealed that astrocytoma was the commonest pathological type encountered [35.2%] among all cases of pediatric brain tumours. The second prevalent type was medulloblastoma [24.9%] followed by craniophryngioma [11.4%]. Analysis of tumour site in the present work revealed that 39.9% were supratentorial and 60.1% were infratentorial. A remarkable difference in incidence of certain tumour types was found between children and adults. In adult cases, meningioma, pituitary adenoma and astrocytoma constituted the most frequently prevalent types [40.5%, 19.7% and 13.3% respectively]; while astrocytoma, medulloblastoma and craniophryngioma were the most commonly encountered pathological types among children [35.2%, 24.9% and 11.4% respectively]