Malignant cerebellar peduncle lesions - rapid progression and poor outcome

BACKGROUND: Tumors arising from cerebellar peduncle are extremely rare and behave aggressively. The inclusion of these into either cerebellar or brainstem gliomas is contentious. CASE DESCRIPTION: We performed clinicopathological review of three patients treated at our institute and surveyed the literature for previous such reported cases. Mean duration of symptoms in our patients was 2 weeks. Subtotal tumor resection was performed in two patients while the third underwent stereotactic biopsy followed by chemoradiotherapy. Histopathology revealed glioblastoma in initial two patients and medulloblastoma Grade IV in the third. The two patients who underwent surgical excision succumbed to the illness within 2 days and a month, respectively. CONCLUSION: Malignant cerebellar peduncular lesions have poor overall survival despite surgical debulking. It is not confirmed whether these tumors should be considered as cerebellar lesions or brainstem gliomas due to aggressive clinical behavior, and so the ideal line of management is not yet known.