Meningiomas: Classification

According to the WHO classification of central nervous system (CNS) tumors, meningiomas can be classified as follows:

WHO grade Grade description Diagnosis
I
  • Benign (benign) tumors
  • Slow growing
  • Long symptom-free period
  • Recurrence tendency (recurrence): 7-20 %.
  • By surgical removal cure!
 Meningiomas (80-85%)

Variants:

  • Angiomatous
  • Fibromatous
  • Meningeotheliomatous
  • Microcytic
  • Psammomatous
  • Secretory
  • Transitional
II
  • Benign
  • Tumors often growing infiltratively
  • Rapid growth
  • Tendency to recurrence: 30-40%
  • Survival time not significantly limited
 Atypical meningioma (8-10%).

Variants:

  • Clear cell
  • Chordoid
III
  • Malignant (malignant) tumors
  • Fast growing
  • Infiltration of the brain
  • Tendency to recurrence: 50-80%
  • Reduction in survival time
 Anaplastic meningioma (2-5%).

Variants:

  • Papillary
  • Rhabdoid

The methylation pattern of tumor cells provides an indication of how aggressive a meningioma is. This allows a reliable distinction to be made between safely benign (benign) tumors, for which surgery is usually sufficient, and those for which the patient also requires radiotherapy (radiation therapy).

The new WHO classification of central nervous system (CNS) tumors considers:

  • Histologic assignment of the tumor to a tumor type,
  • histological determination of malignancy criteria; WHO grade is defined on the basis of histological features,
  • Determination of molecular genetic parameters with diagnostic, prognostic or predictive value,
  • integrative diagnosis taking into account the 3 aforementioned levels of diagnosis.

Note: The entire WHO classification of central nervous system (CNS) tumors is shown under the disease “brain tumors“.