Comparative clinical and epidemiological study of central nervous system tumors in Pakistan and global database

Abstract

Introduction: Brain tumors encompass a broad group showing wide geographic and ethnic variation in incidence. In keeping view the critical dearth of epidemiological data on brain tumors from Pakistan we undertook this study, with the aim to first describe spectrum of brain tumors at our center, and then to compare our results with prevalence pattern in global population using TCGA clinical dataset. Material and methods: Data was retrospectively collected from Histopathology archives of Dow Diagnostic Reference and Research Lab (DDRRL), Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), Pakistan. Clinical data set for Low Grade Gliomas (LGG) and Glioblastoma (GBM) cohort (TCGA) was downloaded from cbioportal (www.cbioportal.org). All the analyses were performed in IBM SPSS v. 24 and P value 36 years). Significant difference was recorded between our centre and global dataset with respect to age (P < 0.0001), common histological subtype (P < 0.0001), and histological grade (P < 0.0001). Conclusion: Present study shows significant variation in CNS tumor prevalence pattern between our population and global data highlighting the need for epidemiological and scientific studies to delineate the environmental and genetic risk factors pertaining to our population.

Keywords

• Brain tumors
• CNS tumors
• Low grade gliomas
• Glioblastoma
• Pakistan
• TCGA