2/24/2004 Case 3: Pineoblastoma

Clinical History:

The circulated slide was of a large pineal region tumor which had enhanced with Gadolinium in Tl weighted MRI. The tumor was larger than 2 cm coronally and 2.5 cm sagitally; it was not attached to the cerebellum. dermoid. Dr Rao noted that a case of this entity has been reported in association with a cholesteatoma (see Brain Pathology 2001) .

Diagnostic Notes:

Histologicaly the tumor was a "small blue cell" lesion which had many mitotic figures, foci with calcification, and foci with necrosis. There was synaptophysin immunoreactivity, and no GFAP immunopositivity. The diagnosis given was "Pineoblastoma". Discussion centered on the WHO classification of pineal parenchymal tumors; the latest WHO does not include "mixed differentiation pineoblastoma" and has only pineocytoma, pineal parenchymal tumor of intermediate differentiation, and pineoblastoma.

Slide Image:

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