Profiling Pediatric CNS Tumors

This study of pediatric central nervous system tumors was approved by the Institutional Review Board Study #00030211. Tumor and non-tumor tissues were collected from patients treated at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center from 1993 to 2017. Patients consented to use of tissues for research purposes. Histopathologic tumor type and grade for each sample were re-reviewed according to the 2021 WHO classification of CNS tumors and categorized into the major tumor types^{5 (link)}. Tumor types included in this study are astrocytoma, embryonal tumors, ependymoma, glioneuronal/neuronal tumors, glioblastoma, and Schwannoma. The average age at diagnosis of subjects from whom the tumor tissues were derived from in this study was 9.3 (range: 0.75 – 18). Male subjects accounted for 62.9% of the tumor samples and female subjects accounted for 37.1% of the tumor samples. Non-tumor brain tissues were obtained from pediatric patients with epilepsy who underwent surgical resection. The average age at diagnosis of subjects from whom the non-tumor samples were derived from was 6.2 (0.58 – 11). Male subjects accounted for 33.3% of the non-tumor samples and female subjects accounted for 66.7% of the non-tumor samples. Specific demographic characteristics of patients for the study are provided in Table 1 and sample information for each subject are provided in Supplementary Table 1.