DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2018.v06i10.026

Pages: 3800-3804

Brain tumour in paediatric population is one of the important causes of mortality and morbidity. They may be grouped into supratentorial and infratentorial tumours. MRI with its multiplanar capability and different pulse sequences has very important role in detection, localisation & characterisation of brain tumours and for planning of treatment. The aim of study was to find out the demographic profile of paediatric patients with posterior fossa tumours, to assess the distribution, localization and extent of tumours by MRI and to correlate with histopathological examination. In the present study, 72 paediatric patients with symptoms/signs of brain tumour, who were sent for MRI evaluation, were taken for study. Those with lesions in supratentorial brain (40 in no.) were excluded from study leaving 32 patients with posterior fossa lesions. Their post operative histology diagnosis was compared with MRI study. It was found that, out of 32 cases, one was found to be pyogenic abscess and one was tuberculoma. Among total of 30 patients with histology diagnosis of having tumour, 24(80%) were males and 6 (20%) were females. Most common age group was first decade (53.3 %). Intraaxial tumors (80%) were commoner with astrocytoma (9 in no.) and medulloblastoma (9 in no.) as the commonest lesions followed by ependymoma (4 in no.), PNET (1 in no.) and choroid plexus tumor (1 in no.). Other tumors were epidermoid (1 in no.), arachnoid cyst (2 in no.). Tumors extending from adjacent areas were craniopharyngioma (1 in no.) & pinealoblastoma (1 in no.) which constituted 6.7% of tumors. Tuberculoma and pyogenic abscess mimicked tumours at imaging in 2 (6.7%) patients. MRI correctly diagnosed lesions in 29 out of 32 patients and wrongly diagnosed in 3, all those 3 lesions were intraaxial in location. MRI is very important imaging modality in accurately evaluating the morphologic distribution of various tumors in the posterior fossa. MRI is accurate for tissue characterizati