Hepatic neoplasia and metabolic diseases in children

Group 3 medulloblastoma in a patient with a GYS2 germline mutation and glycogen storage disease 0a

Glycogen storage disease (GSD) 0a is a rare congenital metabolic disease with symptoms in infancy and childhood caused by biallelic GYS2 germline variants. A predisposition to cancer has not been described yet. We report here a boy with GSD 0a, who developed a malignant brain tumor at the age of 4.5 years. The tumor was classified as a group 3 medulloblastoma, and the patient died from cancer 27 months after initial tumor diagnosis. This case appears interesting as group 3 medulloblastoma is so far not known to arise in hereditary syndromes and the biology of sporadic group 3 medulloblastoma is largely unknown.

Embryonal Hepatoblastoma with Co-existent Glycogen Storage Disease in a Seven-month-old Child

Hepatoblastoma is an uncommon malignant liver tumour diagnosed usually during the first three years of life. It presents as abdominal mass with elevated alpha fetoprotein levels. The definite diagnosis requires histopathological confirmation. Although conditions like Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (FAP) or Beckwith-Wiedman Syndrome may be associated with hepatoblastomas, storage disorders are uncommonly documented. We describe a rare case of hepatoblastoma with co-existent glycogen storage disease in an infant male who presented with a progressively increasing mass in abdomen along with failure to thrive.

Malignant liver tumors

Malignant tumors of the liver comprise a relatively small fraction of the total number of pediatric malignancies. However, these tumors can be a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, and there have been significant therapeutic gains during the past few decades through advances in systemic therapy and surgical treatment. Even in patients with advanced local disease, complete resection is now a possibility because of improvements in liver transplantation techniques. In this review, we will discuss the staging and treatment of common malignant tumors of the liver.