HISTOPATHOLOGICAL STUDY OF NEOPLASTIC LESIONS OF BRAIN IN NORTH WEST RAJASTHAN

Background: Cancers of the central nervous system (CNS) are considered to be the most notorious among all cancers. Brain tumors are a mixed group of neoplasms that originate from the intracranial tissues and the meninges with degrees of malignancy varying greatly from benign to aggressive. The WHO classification offers a crude histological grading system, in which each CNS tumor is classified as Grades I-IV according to its degree of malignancy. Primary neoplasms of CNS represent nearly two-thirds of all brain tumours. Methods: The study was carried out in the Department of Pathology, Sardar Patel Medical College and associated group of hospitals, Bikaner. It was a hospital based retrospective and prospective study for 5 years from 2015 to 2020, including brain biopsies / tissue following surgical resection, submitted at our department. Improper and autolysed specimens and cases without proper clinical history were excluded. Results: We included a total of 245 cases of CNS malignancies received at our department during the study period in our study. Of total 245 cases, as in Table no. 1, most common tumor noted was Astrocytoma with 37.55% cases, followed by Meningioma 18.78% cases, Pituitary adenoma 8.57% cases and Pilocytic Astrocytoma 7.76% cases, whereas only one case (0.41%) was recorded each for Subependymoma, Neurocytoma, Haemangioma, Haemangiopericytoma and Spindle cell tumor. The most common tumors were diffuse astrocytic and oligodendroglial tumors with total 41.63% (n=102) cases followed by Meningial tumors with total 18.78% (n=46) cases. Conclusions: The most frequent type of CNS tumours in this study was astrocytoma, followed by meningioma. This study may provide the representative prevalence of various types of CNS tumors. Thus, from the point of view of treatment of the different tumors of central nervous system mostly presenting with common clinical symptoms there is a direct need for a histopathological study in order to arrive at a correct diagnosis as for instance in the present study to know the type of tumor and their further typing and also its histological grade from the point of view of prognosis. Keywords: Brain Tumors, Astrocytoma, Meningioma, CNS Tumors