Objective: To explore the treatment plan of intracranial tumors in infants.
Methods: The clinical features and curative effect of 114 patients of intracranial tumors in infants who were admitted and performed microsurgery were analyzed retrospectively. The total removal of tumor was 72.0%, subtotal removal 17.5%, partial removal 10.5%. The patients of 3 years old or so were advised to perform radiotherapy after operation. Follow-up ranges from 13 months to 7 years.
Results: The tumor located at posterior fossa (37.7%), sella region (31.6%), hemisphere (19.3%) including in basal ganglia. The common symptoms included headache, vomiting, ataxia, and decrease of visual acuity. All the patients obtained good recovery except one patient dead after operation. Among 86 follow-up cases, 20 patients deceased and 66 patients survived. But 6 patients developed worse than the children of the same age.
Conclusion: Good prognosis can not be obtained for embryonal tumors and ependymoma through operation only. Although radiotherapy is useful of inhibiting the growth of tumor, the dosage should be decreased for infants and the complications in long term also should be considered simultaneously. It is a trend towards performing chemotherapy after operation. It is not necessary to perform auxiliary therapy for astrocytoma, oligodendroglioma, and mixed glioma, because the prognosis is good after total removal of the tumor.