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A rare case report and literatures review on primary germinoma in cerebellar hemisphere

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Abstract

Object

Primary intracranial germinoma is a rare intracranial lesion which accounts for approximately 0.5–2% of all intracranial tumors. Generally, primary intracranial germinoma occurs in the midline structures of the central nervous system of a pediatric patient. Only four cases of primary cerebellar germinomas with poor prognosis have been previously reported. The object of this paper is to introduce a case of germinoma originating from cerebellar hemisphere and to discuss its clinical features.

Methods

This paper reported an 8-year-old boy who was diagnosed to have cerebella inflammatory granuloma during hospitalization and then discharged without any operation. However, the follow-up MRs revealed that the lesion became larger. Therefore, the boy was hospitalized again and underwent a gross total resection of lesion. According to pathological examination, the final diagnosis was confirmed as germinoma.

Results

Chemo- and radiotherapy were followed and so far, the patient showed good recovery without any recurrence and metastasis.

Conclusion

Primary cerebellar germinoma has been rarely described in previous literatures. In this paper, a primary cerebellar germinoma was reported and its clinical features and treatments were discussed. The tumor’s significant shrinkage by CT- scan was firstly reported and maybe this would provide a valuable hint for the diagnosis and treatment on the intracranial germinomas in children.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Funding (31271119), Beijing, a high-level technical talents cultivation plan in the Beijing Municipal Planning Commission Funding (2013-3-045).

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Correspondence to Jian Gong.

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The authors have no financial or personal relations that could pose a conflict of interest.

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Wang, L., Zhu, W., Li, X. et al. A rare case report and literatures review on primary germinoma in cerebellar hemisphere. Childs Nerv Syst 33, 2039–2045 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00381-017-3502-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00381-017-3502-2

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