抄録
A 68-year-old woman was hospitalized with expressive aphasia and right hemiparesis. Computed tomography demonstrated three separate mass lesions, one each in the left frontal lobe, left parietal lobe, and left basal ganglia. Following partial removal of the tumors, whole brain irradiation (50 Gy) and chemotherapy were administered. However, the patient progressively deteriorated and died 3 months after surgery. While postmortem examination demonstrated no evidence of a relationship among the three masses, histological examination showed that all three were anaplastic astrocytomas. However, different histological characteristics were noted in the three. The left frontal and parietal lobe tumors contained gemistocytic astrocytoma, the left thalamic tumor exhibited a palisading pattern, and features of subependymal giant cell astrocytoma were found in the tumor near the left lateral ventricle.
The definition, diagnostic procedure, and characteristic histological findings of multicentric glioma are discussed.
