CONGENITAL GLIOBLASTOMA MULTIFORME: PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS ON THE BASIS OF SONOGRAPHY AND MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING

Congenital intracranial neoplasms are quite rare, accounting for 0.5% to 1.5% of all pediatric central nervous system tumors,' with glioblastomas accounting for 14.6% of fetal neoplasms.2 The in utero detection of congenital central nervous system neoplasms is typically incidental, found on sonography during scanning for an unrelated reason, decreased fetal movement, or polyhydramnios. 3 There have been at least 13 reports of antenatal detection of a glioblastoma in utero. 3-14 We present a case in which the initial sonographic impression was that of an arteriovenous malformation with multifocal hemorrhage versus an intracranial neoplasm and in which subsequent prenatal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allowed a more definitive diagnosis of an aggressive central nervous system tumor.