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Magnetic resonance imaging characteristics of pediatric pilocytic astrocytoma

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A Correction to this article was published on 10 August 2023

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Abstract

Purpose

MRI has an important role in diagnosing pilocytic astrocytoma and post-surgical follow-up since the surgical approach has a leading role in its treatment. The purpose of our study is to provide an overview of the typical and atypical MRI findings in a series of pediatric patients with isolated—not NF1-related—pilocytic astrocytomas and to correlate specific MRI patterns with clinical variables.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional retrospective study providing the analysis of several clinical and neuroradiological findings from a cohort of pediatric pilocytic astrocytoma, starting from the data collected in the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta (FINCB) internal Cancer Registry during an 11-year time period (January 2008–January 2019).

Results

Fifty-six patients were included in the study. Median age at diagnosis was 9.4 years; a slight female prevalence was noticed (m/f ratio 44.6%/55.4%). The majority of pPAs had well-defined contours: 51 (91.1%), 47 (88.7%) were hypointense on T1-wi, all of them were hyperintense on T2-wi, 46 (90.2%) were hyperintense on FLAIR, and 48 (85.7%) were heterogeneous on T1-wi and T2-wi sequences. We found positive correlation between pPAs location and age (r = 0.017), and small degree of connection between pPAs location and gender (Cramer’s V = 0.268).

Conclusions

We presented typical and atypical pPAs MRI findings. Age and tumor location were positevely correlated, while degree of connection between gender and pPAs location was small. All of this may aid clinicians, most of all neuroradiologists, neurosurgeons, and neurologists in proper diagnoses and follow-up of these specific patient population.

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Data availability

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

Code availability

Not applicable

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Aknowledgements

The study was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health; most of the authors of this publication are members of European Reference Network of Paediatric Oncology (ERN-PaedCan).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neuroradiology, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy

    Valentina Opancina, Eleonora Bruno, Marco Moscatelli, Luisa Chiapparini & Fabio M. Doniselli

  2. Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Kragujevac, Kragujevac, Serbia

    Valentina Opancina

  3. Developmental Neurology Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy

    Silvia Esposito

  4. Department of Neurosurgery, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy

    Francesco Di Meco & Ignazio G. Vetrano

  5. Department of Oncology and Hematology-Oncology, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Francesco Di Meco

  6. Department of Neurological Surgery, Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Francesco Di Meco

  7. Department of Biomedical Section, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostics, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

    Eleonora Bruno

  8. Department of Biomedical Sciences for Health, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Marco Moscatelli & Ignazio G. Vetrano

  9. Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Neuroradiology, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy

    Luisa Chiapparini

  10. Faculty of Medicine, Military Medical Academy, University of Defense, Belgrade, Serbia

    Miljan Opancina

  11. Department of Medical Statistics and Informatics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Kragujevac, Kragujevac, Serbia

    Miljan Opancina & Nebojsa Zdravkovic

  12. Neuroepidemiology Unit, Foundation IRCCS Neurological Institute C. Besta, Milan, Italy

    Mariangela Farinotti

  13. Neuropathology Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy

    Bianca Pollo & Gianluca Marucci

Authors
  1. Valentina Opancina
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  2. Silvia Esposito
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  3. Francesco Di Meco
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  6. Ignazio G. Vetrano
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Valentina Opancina: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, project administration, and writing. Silvia Esposito: data curation, investigation, writing. Francesco Di Meco: methodology, writing, and editing. Eleonora Bruno: data curation, methodology, writing, and editing. Marco Moscatelli: data curation, methodology, writing, and editing. Ignazio G. Vetrano: data curation, methodology, writing, and editing. Luisa Chiapparini: data analyses, methodology, writing, and editing. Miljan Opancina: data analysis, methodology, and writing. Mariangela Farinotti: data curation, methodology, writing, and editing. Nebojsa Zdravkovic: data analysis, methodology, and writing. Bianca Pollo: data curation, methodology, writing, and editing. Gianluca Marucci: data curation, methodology, writing, and editing. Fabio M. Doniselli: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, project administration, and writing. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Valentina Opancina and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All the authors have made significant contributions to the manuscript, have agreed to the order in which their names appear and take public responsibility for the content of the study. All authors agree to be published.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marco Moscatelli.

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Ethics approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Institutional Review Board from the Research Neurological Institute Carlo Besta.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Patients signed informed consent regarding publishing their data and photographs.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Opancina, V., Esposito, S., Di Meco, F. et al. Magnetic resonance imaging characteristics of pediatric pilocytic astrocytoma. Neurol Sci 44, 4033–4040 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-023-06893-8

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