Management of hydrocephalus in children with posterior fossa tumors: role of tumor surgery

Abstract

Objective: The majority of children with posterior fossa tumors have hydrocephalus (HC) at the time of presentation. There is no consensus regarding the management of HC in these children. Here, we report the rate of cure of HC with tumor surgery alone.

Patients and methods: This is a retrospective study of 87 children with posterior fossa tumors in which 35 patients had medulloblastoma, 38 had astrocytoma and 14 had ependymoma. The mean age at presentation was 7.3 years (range: 0.2-19.7 years). All patients underwent tumor resection and were followed with close clinical and image surveillance to detect persistent HC. HC was treated with endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) or shunt. We have focused on patients who needed permanent cerebrospinal fluid diversion (ETV or shunt) within 30 days of tumor resection. HC presenting after this time period is, in the majority of cases, due to tumor recurrence or progression. In this series, 24/87 (28%) patients had a suboccipital craniectomy and 63/87 (72%) had a craniotomy.

Results: At the time of presentation, 69/87 (79%) patients had symptomatic HC. In 41/69 (59%) patients presenting with HC, the HC was cured by tumor resection alone. The HC cure rate for patients with astrocytoma was 83%, whereas it was 47% for patients with medulloblastoma and 54% for patients with ependymoma. The cure rate was equal in the craniectomy and craniotomy groups.

Conclusions: An 87% cure rate of HC by tumor resection alone in children with posterior fossa astrocytoma warrants no change in treatment strategy. However, the low cure rate of HC by tumor resection alone in patients with medulloblastoma and ependymoma raises the issue of whether these patients would benefit from preresection ETV.