Main description:

This volume represents the formal presentations and discussions which took place during a three-day meeting in March 1988 at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. It is" dedicated to my friend of more than thirty years, Prof. Dr. Klaus Joachim Ziilch, who died in Berlin on December 2. 1988 while this volume was still in preparation. Klaus Zulch had devoted a significant portion of his professional life to a better understanding of central nervous tumors. Over the past two decades he served as the Director of the Collaborating Center for CNS Tumors, under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO), and it was largely through his efforts that the work of the CelJ. ter in developing criteria for a histologic classification of these neoplasms was kept alive. Without his stimulus this Houston meeting would probably not have taken place. In early 1987 he approached me with the idea of convening, at an early date, a meeting in Houston in collaboration with the Department of Neuro-Oncology of the Cancer Center, of which I was then Chairman. The purpose of this proposed meeting was to discuss recent research developments that might have a profound influence on the classification of brain tumors and ultimately necessitate revision of the "Blue Book" of the WHO on Histological Typing 0/ Tumours 0/ the Central Nervous System.

Contents:

Introductory Remarks.- One - Embryonal Tumors of the Neuroectoderm.- I - Primary Neuroectodermal Tumor - A Concept Requiring an Apologia?.- II - Justification for a Cytogenetic Scheme of Embryonal Central Neuroepithelial Tumors.- Discussion of Chapters I and II.- III - Classification of Pediatric Tumors - Alternative Strategies.- Discussion of Chapter III.- IV - Primitive Neuroectodermal Tumors: Views on a Working Classification.- V - Phenotypic Analysis of Medulloblastoma with Monoclonal Antibodies.- Discussion of Chapters IV and V.- VI - Pinealomas: Need for an Ultrastructural Diagnosis.- Discussion of Chapter VI.- General Discussion of Part One.- Two - Malignant Glial Tumors.- VII - Can Cytogenetic and Molecular Genetic Analyses of Malignant Human Gliomas Be Used Yet to Supplement Conventional Classification Schemes?.- VIII - Immunohistochemical Assessment of Differentiation and DNA Replication in Human Brain Tumors.- IX - Application of Immunohistochemistry for Tumor Grading in Human Neuro-Oncology.- Discussion of Chapters VII - IX.- X - Monstrocellular Sarcomas.- XI - Grading of Gliomas.- XII - A New Uniform Grading System (Using Mayo Clinic Material).- XIII - The Grading of Astrocytomas and Oligodendrogliomas.- XIV - Grading of Brain Tumors According to the WHO Classification: Applicability to Clinical Medicine.- Discussion of Chapter XIV.- XV - Clinical Correlations of Malignant Ependymomas.- General Discussion of Part Two.- Three - Meningiomas.- XVI - History and Diagnosis of Meningiomas.- XVII - Biological Behavior of Meningiomas.- XVIII - Meningiomas: Immunocytochemistry and Steroid Hormone Receptors.- Discussion of Chapters XVI - XVIII.- Closing Discussion.- References.