title: Incidental diagnosis of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma in children.
abstract: Children with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) have a short onset, rapidly progressive neurologic decline before diagnosis. Therefore, incidental diagnosis of such an aggressive cancer is counterintuitive, yet our experience shows DIPG may occur as part of a spectrum of incidentally diagnosed pediatric brain cancers. Although children with incidentally diagnosed DIPG may experience a longer survival, it remains a potentially deadly cancer despite treatment with radiotherapy. Histologic confirmation is warranted when feasible in such patients to confirm diagnosis. Moreover, recent advances in genome-wide analyses may suggest incidentally diagnosed DIPGs are biologically distinct from the majority of these cancers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee.
authors.forename: Karen D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Noah D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Sabin
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cheuk
authors.forename: RenéY
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: McNall-Knapp
authors.forename: Sheila A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Shurtleff
authors.forename: Amar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gajjar
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Broniscer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D020295:Brain Stem Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005910:Glioma / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male
keywords: neuro-oncology; pediatric hematology/oncology; tumor biology