Adult diffuse pontine lesions have a median survival range of 4.9 to 7.3 years!
There seems to be a bimodal type of distribution of diffuse brainstem lesions. The first peak is generally in the the 4-9 year olds and the second is in the 20-50 year olds. Like children, diffuse brainstem gliomas are the most frequent type of brainstem tumor in adults. Unlike children who tend to have high grade lesions with a prognosis on average of about 1 year, young adults with similarly appearing lesions when biopsied are low grade and may have a much greater life expectancy.
Although adult and pediatric DIPG patients might present with similar symptoms (such as ataxia and cranial nerve palsies), is important to realize that despite potentially similar appearances of the diffuse pontine lesions on MRI this is not the same disease process. This is made clear in the review (full text link) published last year in The Oncologist. For those interested the read is not near as difficult as the recent molecular tumor biology publications. In addition, there are three MRI series of adult patients with diffuse pontine lesions. One of these survivors' MRIs is shown 10 years out.
I highly recommend a peak at these MRIs (which is easier to do on pub med if one doesn't want to read the entire publication.) It is amazing how the MR imaging is so similar to what we see in pediatric patients, yet the course can be so much different.
No one know yet why the tumors are so different in different ages.
Reference:
Adult Brainstem Glioma
Oncologist. 2012;17(3):388-97. doi: 10.1634/theoncologist.2011-0335. Epub 2012 Mar 1.
Full Free Text
http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/content/17/3/388.long
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