2004 Volume 13 Issue 8 Pages 608-613
We report a case of metastatic seeding glioblastoma in a 67-year-old female patient, which has progressed from gemistocytic astrocytoma along the trajectory of a Stereotactic brain biopsy. Generally, Stereotactic biopsy is thought to be safe, easy and accurate for the histological comfirmation of brain tumors and it carries a low risk of complication. Common complications include intracranial hemorrhage, brain swelling, and infection. But a rare complication of tumor seeding following biopsy can occur. However, tumor seeding as a result of biopsy has beenreported or discussed in only a few publications. The seeding of tumor cells along the trajectory of the biopsy mayoccur to some extent during every biopsy. This has been reported to occur in animal models. However, seededtumor cells usually do not grow into a clinically significant bulk of tumor. The growth of seeded tumor cells proba-bly depends on the cytokinetic characteristics of the cells, the number of tumor cells, cell adhesiveness, cell growthpotential, the fertility of the host, and the degree of malignancy. The more malignant the tumor type, the higher therisk of tumor seeding. These factors should keep in mind to help avoid these complications and device strategies to minimize tumorseeding.
