Clinical features and biological markers of brain tumors.

Brain tumors represent a wide and important field of oncology. Their incidence has increased in the last twenty years but the reason for this, as well as the etiopathogenesis of these tumors, has not been clearly understood yet. In the first part of this paper we have divided brain tumors on a topographic basis in neoplasms which develop in the posterior fossa, in the midbrain and in the hemispheres; the clinical characteristics of the most frequent tumors are also analysed. Particular attention has been given to neoplasms in children. In the second part we deal with the two most useful methods of diagnosis and classification of brain tumors: immunoistochemical markers and biochemical markers.