Intracranial meningeal tumours in childhood: A clinicopathologic study including MIB-1 immunohistochemistry

WOS: 000085802700003PubMed ID: 10729919Primary tumours of the meninges with a relatively high tendency for malignant behaviour are uncommon in childhood. This study concerns 18 cases of meningeal tumours in children under the age of 16, of which 13 were meningiomas and five were other tumours arising in the meninges. Meningiomas showed a preponderance in females as in adult series, and the majority were supratentorial in localisation. The percentage of meningeal tumours and meningiomas among all brain tumours in our centre were 3.72% and 2.69%, respectively. Four out of 13 meningiomas were fibroblastic, four were transitional, one was meningothelial, two were psammomatous and two were papillary meningiomas. Seven (38.8%) out of 18 tumours showed anaplastic features, including two papillary meningiomas, two hemangiopericytomas, one mesenchymal chondrosarcoma, one pleomorphic sarcoma and one anaplastic meningeal tumour. Papillary meningiomas with hemangiopericytoma-like solid areas were seen frequently in our cases (15.3%). Meningoangiomatosis was associated with two meningeal tumours. MIB 1 (Ki-67) labelling indices (LIs) ranged between 0% and 13,6% (mean 1.83%) in benign, and between 1% and 20% (mean 7.2%) in malignant tumour, including papillary meningiomas. Mean MIB-1 LIs were 5.61% and 1.14% in non-recurrent and recurrent cases, respectively. MIB-1 LIs showed significant differences between benign and malignant meningeal rumours but no significant correlation either with prognosis or recurrence