Epidemiology of brain tumors.

After lagging behind other brain tumor disciplines in the 1980s, the epidemiology of brain tumors is now making progress on several fronts. The Central Brain Tumor Registry in the USA has made a complete description of primary brain tumors available to researchers. International data suggest that environmental components in the etiology of brain tumors are likely to be widely dispersed by geography and demographic subgroups. There are few proven causes of brain tumors: high-dose ionizing radiation, inherited genetic syndromes and AIDs-related brain lymphomas. Promising avenues of research include the role of immune function, genetic components in families, metabolic and DNA-repair pathways and neurocarcinogen exposures.