Pediatric intraventricular meningioma: A series of six cases

OBJECTIVE: Meningiomas in children is a rare occurrence. Primary intraventricular meningiomas (IVMs) are even rarer with reported incidence of 0.5%–5% of all meningiomas. The aim of the study was to describe the demographic profile, location, surgical approach, complications, and histopathology of six pediatric patients with IVM. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed all intraventricular tumors operated at our Institute from January 2010 till July 2015. Patients' clinical details and follow-up were obtained from hospital records and scans were obtained from picture archiving and communication system. RESULTS: We found 6 pediatric patients (age ≤18 years) with histopathologically proven IVM. The mean age in this series was 14.6 years. Tumor was most commonly approached through the superior parietal lobule in this series. Gross total excision was achieved in all patients. The blood loss in the series was in the range of 600–2000 ml with a mean of 1100 ml. All were grade 1 meningioma on histopathological examination. Transitional meningioma was the most common histological subtype. None of the patients had a recurrence at last follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Pediatric IVMs are rare tumors. They tend to have a male preponderance in contrast to adults which have a preference for females. Parietooccipital transcortical, transcallosal approach, middle/inferior temporal gyrus approach are the described techniques to tackle such tumors depending on the location of such tumors. Surgeons should watch out for massive blood loss during surgery, especially via the parietooccipital transcortical approach.