Case Reports of Tectal Plate Gliomas Showing Indolent Course

From 2004 to 2020, we studied three pediatric patients (age: 9–13 years, all male) and one adult patient (age: 29 years, female) with tectal plate glioma with obstructing hydrocephalus on MRI. One patient had neurofibromatosis type 1. All patients complained about headaches and vomiting, and one patient had diplopia. Endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) was underwent in all patients and a biopsy was obtained from two patients. Pathologic diagnoses were a pilocytic astrocytoma and a low-grade glioma. After ETV with or without biopsy, neurological symptoms were improved in all patients. Three patients did the clinical and radiological follow-up without adjuvant treatment. One patient underwent gamma knife radiosurgery. In two pediatric patients and the adult patient, there was no clinical and radiological progression after 6.2, 6.9, and 8.0 years, respectively. One pediatric patient whose lesion had focal enhancement had radiologic progression without any neurologic symptoms after 5.1 years. Without adjuvant treatment for this lesion, there was no clinical deterioration neither further radiological progression for 6.2 years after radiological aggravation. Tectal plate gliomas showed indolent clinical courses, even after radiologic tumor progression. After the treatment of obstructing hydrocephalus, clinical and radiologic follow-up can be recommended for indolent tectal plate gliomas.