Treatment Results of Gamma Knife Radiosurgery for Central Neurocytoma: Report of a Japanese Multi-Institutional Cooperative Study

Objective Central neurocytoma (CN) is a rare benign neuronal tumor, and a limited number of reports have described the usefulness of radiosurgery for a relatively large group of patients. We evaluated the effectiveness and outcomes of Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKS) for CN in a Japanese multi-institutional study. Methods We performed retrospective analysis of 36 patients with CN who were treated with GKS in 12 institutes in Japan. All patients underwent surgery before GKS. The median tumor volume at GKS was 4.9 mL (range, 0.07–23.4 mL), and the median radiation dose prescribed to the tumor margin was 15 Gy (range, 10–20 Gy). The median follow-up period was 54.5 months (range, 3–180 months). Results The local tumor progression-free survival rates at 5 and 10 years were 94% and 86%, respectively. Three patients developed distant dissemination 16–90 months later. Overall progression-free survival was unrelated to the prescribed dose ( P  = 0.62), tumor size ( P  = 0.46), gender ( P  = 0.36), age ( P  = 0.37), target of GKS (residual vs. recurrence, P  = 0.90), and type of enhancement (homogeneous vs. inhomogeneous, P  = 0.19). Two permanent complications occurred with 1 intratumoral hemorrhage and 1 radiation injury. Conclusions GKS is effective for CN because of its high rate of long-term local tumor control. GKS may have a potential role as a primary treatment for asymptomatic, relatively small tumors in the absence of hydrocephalus without surgical resection.