RARE-25. DISSECTING THE CONTEMPORARY EPIDEMIOLOGY OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY BRAIN TUMORS IN INFANCY THROUGH CHILDHOOD
Abstract Introduction Herein we utilize national registry data to evaluate the epidemiology of primary and secondary pediatric brain tumors according to the WHO2016 classification. Methods Pediatric patients (age≤14) presenting between 2004–2017 with a brain tumor were identified by ICD-O-3 and brain metastasis (2010–2017) coding from the National Cancer Database (comprising >70% of newly-diagnosed cancers in the U.S.), and categorized by NICHD age stages: infant (<1yr; n=1,686), toddler (1-2yrs; n=1,732), early- (2-5yrs; n=6,712), middle- (6-11yrs; n=9,175), and late- (12-14yrs; n=5,042) childhood. Patients’ age, sex, race/ethnicity, and overall survival, and tumor location and size were evaluated by WHO2016 tumor type. Results 24,347 pediatric brain tumor patients were identified. Overall, other astrocytic tumors (24% of females, 20% of males), diffuse astrocytic/oligodendroglial gliomas (23% of females, 21% of males – 64% of which were midline), embryonal (13% of females, 19% of males), and sellar region tumors (12% of females, 8% of males) predominated. Embryonal tumors prevailed in infancy (24%) and toddlerhood (24%), declining to 9% in late childhood; only 40% were female. Ependymal tumors peaked at 15% in toddlerhood (6% overall), whereas choroid plexus tumors peaked at 11% in infancy (1.9% overall). A minority of brain tumors were of neuronal & mixed neuronal-glial (6.1%), germ cell (3.8%), cranial nerve (3.2%), mesenchymal non-meningothelial (2.4%), meningioma (1.6%), pineal (1.1%), hematological/histiocytic (0.5%), and other glioma (0.2%) types. Brain metastases were rare (1.5% overall; from 4.0% in infancy to 0.8% in late childhood; and only 41% were female) – 61% came from adrenal neuroblastoma, 16% from sarcomas, and 6% from malignant rhabdoid tumors/extracranial AT/RT. Conclusions Pediatric brain metastases overwhelmingly originate from adrenal neuroblastoma. Although, overall, diffuse astrocytic/oligodendroglial, other astrocytic, embryonal, and sellar region tumors predominate among pediatric brain tumors, together they only comprise 70% of cases and their distribution varies substantially by patients’ age and sex.