Quantitative histologic factors for grouping childhood infratentorial neuroglial tumors

We employed factor analysis to quantify the degree of histologic heterogeneity of childhood infratentorial neuroglial tumors. Our data were 26 reliably ascertained histologic features in 1068 children in the Childhood Brain Tumor Consortium database. The factor analysis identified five uncorrelated quantitative ''factors,'' each derived from a different linear combination of the 26 histologic features, that accounted for much of the histologic variation. Histologic features differed in their importance in each factor. The most important features in each factor were used for naming using simple histologic, familiar descriptive terms: Spongy, Proliferative, Ring Fibrillary and Nuclear. Each tumor has a score on each factor. Two-thirds of tumors had high scores for at least two factors, indicating frequent histologic heterogeneity among these tumors. Ninety-five percent of tumors were allocated to 1 of 11 nonoverlapping histologically homogeneous groups. The Jive quantitative factors complement standard qualitative taxonomies by making explicit the histologic heterogeneity or homogeneity of individual tumors and provide the pathologist with a method that takes advantage of more of the histology of each tumor than conventional nomenclatures. Histologically homogeneous groups of tumors are likely to be of value in clinical trials and biologic research. Prognostic models based on these factors have been published.