Clinical Features and Survival Outcomes of Pediatric Meningioma Patients: An Integrative Analysis Based on the SEER Database

Background Pediatric meningiomas are extremely rare. The clinical features and prognosis of these patients remain unclear, especially due to the lack of large-scale clinical data. Methods Pediatric and adult patients with meningiomas diagnosed between 2000 and 2021 were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. The clinical characteristics (age, sex, race, tumor laterality, tumor behavior, treatment methods, etc.) of the included patients were reviewed, and the survival analysis was estimated via the Kaplan‒Meier method. Results A total of 364 pediatric patients were identified from the database. Pediatric meningiomas accounted for 0.2%-0.6% of all meningiomas per year. The average age of pediatric patients was 12 years, and that of adult patients was 65. Adult meningioma patients were more commonly female, whereas no significant gender difference was observed in pediatric cases (P < 0.001). Moreover, a higher proportion of borderline and malignant tumors was found in pediatric meningioma patients compared to adults (P < 0.001). Survival analysis revealed that pediatric patients had a better survival prognosis than adult patients (P<0.001). Pediatric patients with coexisting tumors had a worse prognosis than those without coexisting tumors (P < 0.001). Conclusion This study comprehensively investigated the clinical features and survival outcomes of pediatric meningioma patients. Pediatric meningiomas are extremely uncommon and account for 0.2%-0.6% of all meningiomas annually. Pediatric meningiomas have different clinical characteristics and better survival prognoses than adult patients.