Pilocytic astrocytoma in a child diagnosed as "Cerebral Palsy"
Keywords:
pilocytic astrocytoma, cerebral palsyAbstract
Pylocitic astrocytoma makes up approximately 5.1 % of all gliomas and is most common in children. Males are slightly more frequently affected than females. The term „pilocytic” to describe astrocytoma variants has been used since the 1930 to indicate cells with hair-like, bipolar processes. Presenting symptoms will generally be insidious due to the slow growth of the tumor, and the identification of early symptoms will be dependent on localization. Pilocytic astrocytomas usually appear on CT scans as round/oval lesions that are well-defined iso- or slightly hypo-dense and markedly enhance with contrast media. On MRI, PAs are typically hypo- or iso-intense on T1 sequences and hyperintense on T2-weighted or FLAIR images.
In the posterior fossa, PA may involve primarily the brainstem rather than the cerebellum. In general, PAs are considered to have an excellent prognosis with overall 10-year survival reported to be over 90%. We present a 13-year old boy with slowly progressing asymetric quadiparetic syndrome, who was dianosed with cerebral palsy when he was 5 years.
Cerebralpalsy belongs to the group of the most common and severe disabilities of childhood, characterized by a set of nonprogressive motor disorders of posture and movement due to a lesion in the developing brain.
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