Prognostic factors related to intratumoral hemorrhage in pediatric intracranial germ cell tumors

BACKGROUND: Certain types of pediatric intracranial germ cell tumors (PIGCTs) are prone to intratumoral hemorrhaging (TH) and associated with poor survival outcome. However, the impact of TH on the functional prognosis of patients with PIGCTs has not been well studied. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical and MR findings in PIGCT patients with TH to identify the factors related to patient survival and functional outcome. METHODS: This study included 17 patients diagnosed with PIGCT and TH between 2002 and 2016 and evaluated TH-associated clinical and MR findings. The modified Rankin scale (mRS) was used to evaluate functional outcome, which was poor when mRS ≧ 3. The volumes of hematomas and tumors were manually tracked within each brain magnetic resonance imaging slice. RESULTS: Among the 17 patients, 6 (35.3%) died and 9 (52.9%) had poor functional outcome. Regarding the functional outcome, the mean hematoma volume to tumor volume ratio (HTVR) was 8.5 ± 3.9% in the favorable outcome group and 42.3 ± 27.8% in the poor outcome group (p = 0.001). For the survival outcome, the mean HTVR was 15.7 ± 16.1% in the living group and 46.0 ± 31.5% in the deceased group (p = 0.016). The cutoff point of the receiver operating characteristics curve for HTVR to predict death and poor functional outcome was 19.27% and 16.8%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated that patients with larger HTVR had significantly worse functional and survival outcomes than those with smaller HTVR. We suggest that early and aggressive treatment for PIGCTs in patients with large HTVR can improve their long-term prognosis.