Abstract
Report of Brain Tumor Registry of Japan (1969-1993) 10th Edition was issued as a supplement of Neurologia medico-chirurgica, Vol.40 in January, 2000. More than 80,000 cases of brain tumors were registered by 281 neurosurgical institutes all over Japan. According to the report the frequency of registered cases of gliomas has been decreasing while that of the benign tumors such as meningiomas and pituitary adenomas has been increasing. The frequency of meningiomas was 26% of all the primary brain tumors and that of gliomas was 24%. The five-year survival rates of malignant astrocytomas and glioblastomas were only 23% and 6%, respectively, even for the cases after 1991. Histological diagnosis, mode of surgery, preoperative performance status and age have been considered to be the factors influencing the survival rates of gliomas. The report demonstrated that the more tumors were removed, the longer survival rates were expected for any kind of gliomas. The elder patients over 70 years of age showed poor survival rates. Radiotherapy was beneficial to the longer survival of malignant gliomas but did not always contribute to that of low grade gliomas. These data have not resulted from the controlled studies but they represent the recent standard of neurosurgery in Japan. Precise registration is essential in order to establish the reliability of the registry.
