Pediatric intracranial ventricular meningioma

  Ventricular meningiomas arise from glial cells in the ventricles and central canal of the spinal cord and are common in children, but can also occur in adults. Ventricular meningiomas account for 5-10% of intracranial tumors in children, with an annual incidence of 2.19-3.5 per million children. The common types are ventricular meningioma and mesenchymal ventricular meningioma.  Treatment: Regardless of intracranial or spinal ventricular meningioma, total surgical resection is the best option, but the rate of total resection is less than 50% because the tumor can invade the brainstem and encircle the cranial nerves. Intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring will facilitate more complete resection of the tumor, reduce postoperative complications and mortality, and reoperate if enhanced MRI suggests that total resection is not achieved.  It is controversial whether radiotherapy should be given to patients with total resected tumors. Radiotherapy is effective for surgical residual tumors, and ventricular meningiomas are moderately sensitive to radiotherapy. The use of high-dose fractionated radiotherapy above 65 Gy may improve the survival rate of patients with near-total resection.  Chemotherapy is not effective for ventricular meningioma, but postoperative chemotherapy may be an option for infants and children to slow tumor growth while waiting for radiotherapy. Radiation therapy should be given after surgery for interstitial ventricular meningioma.  Most tumor recurrences are local recurrences and the optimal treatment is reoperation for total resection.  Prognosis: Patients without metastasis and total resection have good prognosis. The prognosis of different pathological subtypes does not vary much, but children younger than 3 years old have poor prognosis. Complete surgery is difficult because the tumor is mostly adherent to the brainstem and posterior group of cranial nerves, and the resection rate varies according to the surgeon’s level of surgery. Patients with supratentorial ventricular meningiomas, younger children, mesenchymal ventricular meningiomas, and those who fail to undergo complete surgical resection have a poor prognosis. Recurrence occurs in approximately two-thirds of patients. The 5-year survival rate for recurrent ventricular meningiomas is less than 15%.