ABSTRACT
Objectives To explore the pathological characteristics, treatment and prognosis of medulloblastoma (MB) in children. Methods Pathological characteristics, treatment outcomes and other clinical data were retrospectively analyzed in 60 children with MB. Results The MB in all 60 children were high-grade tumor. The pathological type was mainly classic (45 cases, 75.00%) and other subtypes were seen in 15 cases (25.00%). Forty-eight (80.00%) children had total resection by micro-surgery, 9 children (15.00%) subtotal resection, and 3 children (5.00%) partial resection. Twenty-seven children were treated by radiotherapy after surgery, 6 children were treated by chemotherapy after surgery, and 5 children were treated with radiotherapy combined chemotherapy after surgery. Thirty-eight cases were followed up. The 2-year survival and disease-free survival rates were 63.16%and 55.26%. The 5-year survival and disease-free survival rates were 26.32%and 18.42%. The children with des-moplastic/nodular type survived significantly longer than the children with large cell anaplastic. The children with total resection survived significantly longer than the children with partial resection. The children with radiotherapy or chemotherapy survived significantly longer than the children without chemotherapy (P<0.05). Conclusions MB in most of children is high-grade tu-mors and the prognosis is poor. The pathological type is related with prognosis. Microsurgical total resection is the first choice of treatment. Postoperative radiotherapy and chemotherapy can increase the survival rate.