Medulloblastomas affect just under two people per million per year, and affect children 10 times more than adults. Medulloblastoma is the second-most frequent brain tumor in children after pilocytic astrocytoma and the most common malignant brain tumor in children, comprising 14.5% of newly diagnosed cases. In adults, medulloblastoma is rare, comprising fewer than 2% of CNS malignancies.

The rate of new cases of childhood medulloblastoma is higher in males (62%) than females (38%), a feature which is not seen in adults. Medulloblastoma and other PNET`s are more prevalent in younger children than older children. About 40% of medulloblastoma patients are diagnosed before the age of five, 31% are between the ages of 5 and 9, 18.3% are between the ages of 10 and 14, and 12.7% are between the ages of 15 and 19.

The cumulative relative survival rate for all age groups and histology follow-up was 60%, 52%, and 47% at 5 years, 10 years, and 20 years, respectively. Patients diagnosed with a medulloblastoma or PNET are 50 times more likely to die than a matched member of the general population.

The most recent population-based (SEER) 5-year relative survival rates are 69% overall, but 72% in children (1–9 years) and 67% in adults (20+ years). The 20-year survival rate is 51% in children. Children and adults have different survival profiles, with adults faring worse than children only after the fourth year after diagnosis (after controlling for increased background mortality). Before the fourth year, survival probabilities are nearly identical. Longterm sequelae of standard treatment include hypothalamic-pituitary and thyroid dysfunction and intellectual impairment. The hormonal and intellectual deficits created by these therapies causes significant impairment of the survivors.

In reported cases of the tumor over the last 25 years, the number of affected females with astroblastoma is significantly higher than the number of affected males. Sughrue et al. confirmed this trend, stating that 70% of the cases with clearly stated gender were female (100 cases total). While several publications support a genetic predisposition to females, the underlying reasons are still unknown.

At this point, no literature has indicated whether environmental factors increase the likelihood of astroblastoma. Although cancer in general is caused by a variety of external factors, including carcinogens, dangerous chemicals, and viral infections, astroblastoma research has not even attempted to classify incidence in this regard. The next few decades will aid in this understanding.

An estimated 3% of pediatric brain tumors are AT/RTs, although this percentage may increase with better differentiation between PNET/medulloblastoma tumors and AT/RTs.

As with other CNS tumors, more males are affected than females (ratio 1.6:1). The ASCO study showed a 1.4:1 male to female ratio.

Brainstem glioma is an aggressive and dangerous cancer. Without treatment, the life expectancy is typically a few months from the time of diagnosis. With appropriate treatment, 37% survive more than one year, 20% survive 2 years. and 13% survive 3 years.This is not for all brainstem glioma, this statistic reflects DIPG. There are other brainstem gliomas.

Metastatic spread is noted in roughly one-third of the AT/RT cases at the time of diagnosis, and tumors can occur anywhere throughout the CNS. The ASCO study of the 188 documented AT/RT cases prior to 2004 found 30% of the cases had metastasis at diagnosis. Metastatic spread to the meninges (leptomenigeal spread sometimes referred to as sugar coating) is common both initially and with relapse. Average survival times decline with the presence of metastasis. Primary CNS tumors generally metastasize only within the CNS.

One case of metastatic disease to the abdomen via ventriculoperitoneal shunt has been reported with AT/RT . Metastatic dissemination via this mechanism has been reported with other brain tumors, including germinomas, medulloblastomas, astrocytomas, glioblastomas, ependymomas, and endodermal sinus tumors. Guler and Sugita separately reported cases of lung metastasis without a shunt.

Brain, other CNS or intracranial tumors are the ninth most common cancer in the UK (around 10,600 people were diagnosed in 2013), and it is the eighth most common cause of cancer death (around 5,200 people died in 2012).

About 3 per 100,000 people develop the disease a year. It most often begins around 64 years of age and occurs more commonly in males than females. It is the second most common central nervous system cancer after meningioma.

Oligodendrogliomas are incurable but slowly progressive malignant brain tumors. They can be treated with surgical resection, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or a combination. For some suspected low-grade (grade II) tumors, only a course of watchful waiting and symptomatic therapy is opted for. These tumors show a high frequency of co-deletions of the p and q arms of chromosome 1 and chromosome 19 respectively (1p19q co-deletion) and have been found to be especially chemosensitive with one report claiming them to be one of the most chemosensitive tumors. A median survival of up to 16.7 years has been reported for grade II oligodendrogliomas.

The most common length of survival following diagnosis is 12 to 15 months, with fewer than 3% to 5% of people surviving longer than five years. Without treatment survival is typically 3 months.

Increasing age (> 60 years of age) carries a worse prognostic risk. Death is usually due to widespread tumor infiltration with cerebral edema and increased intracranial pressure.

A good initial Karnofsky Performance Score (KPS) and MGMT methylation are associated with longer survival. A DNA test can be conducted on glioblastomas to determine whether or not the promoter of the "MGMT" gene is methylated. Patients with a methylated MGMT promoter have longer survival than those with an unmethylated MGMT promoter, due in part to increased sensitivity to temozolomide. This DNA characteristic is intrinsic to the patient and currently cannot be altered externally. Another positive prognostic marker for glioblastoma patients is mutation of the "IDH1" gene, which can be tested by DNA-based methods or by immunohistochemistry using an antibody against the most common mutation, namely IDH1-R132H.

More prognostic power can be obtained by combining the mutational status of "IDH1" and the methylation status of "MGMT" into a two-gene predictor. Patients with both "IDH1" mutations and "MGMT" methylation have the longest survival, patients with an "IDH1" mutation or "MGMT" methylation an intermediate survival and patients without either genetic event have the shortest survival.

Long-term benefits have also been associated with those patients who receive surgery, radiotherapy, and temozolomide chemotherapy. However, much remains unknown about why some patients survive longer with glioblastoma. Age of under 50 is linked to longer survival in glioblastoma multiforme, as is 98%+ resection and use of temozolomide chemotherapy and better Karnofsky performance scores. A recent study confirms that younger age is associated with a much better prognosis, with a small fraction of patients under 40 years of age achieving a population-based cure. The population-based cure is thought to occur when a population's risk of death returns to that of the normal population, and in GBM, this is thought to occur after 10 years.

UCLA Neuro-Oncology publishes real-time survival data for patients with this diagnosis. They are the only institution in the United States that shows how their patients are performing. They also show a listing of chemotherapy agents used to treat GBM tumors. Despite a poor prognosis, there is a small number of survivors who have been GBM free for more than 10–20 years.

According to a 2003 study, glioblastoma multiforme prognosis can be divided into three subgroups dependent on KPS, the age of the patient, and treatment.

Regardless of location, all rhabdoid tumours are highly aggressive, have a poor prognosis, and tend to occur in children less than two years of age.

The cause is still unknown. Researchers have not found any direct genetic link.

Primitive neuroectodermal tumor (PNET) is a malignant (cancerous) neural crest tumor. It is a rare tumor, usually occurring in children and young adults under 25 years of age. The overall 5 year survival rate is about 53%.

It gets its name because the majority of the cells in the tumor are derived from neuroectoderm, but have not developed and differentiated in the way a normal neuron would, and so the cells appear "primitive".

PNET belongs to the Ewing family of tumors.

It is classified into two types, based on location in the body: peripheral PNET and CNS PNET.

Ependymomas make up about 5% of adult intracranial gliomas and up to 10% of childhood tumors of the central nervous system (CNS). Their occurrence seems to peak at age 5 years and then again at age 35. They develop from cells that line both the hollow cavities of the brain and the canal containing the spinal cord, but they usually arise from the floor of the fourth ventricle, situated in the lower back portion of the brain, where they may produce headache, nausea and vomiting by obstructing the flow of cerebrospinal fluid. This obstruction may also cause hydrocephalus. They may also arise in the spinal cord, conus medullaris and supratentorial locations. Other symptoms can include (but are not limited to): loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping, temporary inability to distinguish colors, uncontrollable twitching, seeing vertical or horizontal lines when in bright light, and temporary memory loss. It should be remembered that these symptoms also are prevalent in many other illnesses not associated with ependymoma.

About 10% of ependymomas are benign myxopapillary ependymoma (MPE). MPE is a localized and slow-growing low-grade tumor, which originates almost exclusively from the lumbosacral nervous tissue of young patients. On the other hand, it is the most common tumor of the lumbosacral canal comprising about 90% of all tumoral lesions in this region.

Although some ependymomas are of a more anaplastic and malignant type, most of them are not anaplastic. Well-differentiated ependymomas are usually treated with surgery. For other ependymomas, total surgical removal is the preferred treatment in addition to radiation therapy. The malignant (anaplastic) varieties of this tumor, malignant ependymoma and the ependymoblastoma, are treated similarly to medulloblastoma but the prognosis is much less favorable. Malignant ependymomas may be treated with a combination of radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Ependymoblastomas, which occur in infants and children younger than 5 years of age, may spread through the cerebrospinal fluid and usually require radiation therapy. The subependymoma, a variant of the ependymoma, is apt to arise in the fourth ventricle but may occur in the septum pellucidum and the cervical spinal cord. It usually affects people over 40 years of age and more often affects men than women.

Extraspinal ependymoma (EEP), also known as extradural ependymoma, may be an unusual form of teratoma or may be confused with a sacrococcygeal teratoma.

Malignant rhabdoid tumour (MRT) is a very aggressive form of tumour originally described as a variant of Wilms' tumour, which is primarily a kidney tumour that occurs mainly in children.

MRT was first described as a variant of Wilms' tumour of the kidney in 1978. MRTs are a rare and highly malignant childhood neoplasm. Later rhabdoid tumours outside the kidney were reported in many tissues including the liver, soft tissue, and the central nervous system. Several cases of primary intracranial MRT have been reported since its recognition as a separate entity in 1978. The term "rhabdoid" was used due to its similarity with rhabdomyosarcoma under the light microscope. The exact pathogenesis of MRT is unknown.

The cerebellum is the most common location for primary intracerebral MRT (i.e., AT/RT). Biggs et al. were first to report a primary intracranial MRT around 1987.

Although the cell of origin is not known, cytogenetic studies have suggested a common genetic basis for rhabdoid tumours regardless of location with abnormalities in chromosome 22 commonly occurring.

Ependymoma is a tumor that arises from the ependyma, a tissue of the central nervous system. Usually, in pediatric cases the location is intracranial, while in adults it is spinal. The common location of intracranial ependymoma is the fourth ventricle. Rarely, ependymoma can occur in the pelvic cavity.

Syringomyelia can be caused by an ependymoma.

Ependymomas are also seen with neurofibromatosis type II.

Many types of blastoma have been linked to a mutation in tumor suppressor genes. For example, pleuropulmonary blastomas have been linked to a mutation of the coding for p53. However, the mutation which allows proliferation of incompletely differentiated cells can vary from patient to patient and a mutation can alter the prognosis. In the case of retinoblastoma, patients carry a visibly abnormal karyotype, with a loss of function mutation on a specific band of chromosome 13. This recessive deletion on the rb gene is also associated with other cancer types and must be present on both alleles, for a normal cell to progress towards malignancy.

Treatment typically consists of radiotherapy and steroids for palliation of symptoms. Radiotherapy may result in minimally extended survival time. Prognosis is very poor, with only 37% of treated patients surviving one year or more. Topotecan has been studied in the treatment of brainstem glioma, otherwise, chemotherapy is probably ineffective, though further study is needed.

Hemangioblastomas can cause polycythemia due to ectopic production of erythropoietin as a paraneoplastic syndrome.

DIPG has a 5-year survival rate of <1%. The median overall survival of children diagnosed with DIPG is approximately 9 months. The 1- and 2-year survival rates are approximately 30% and less than 10%, respectively. These statistics make DIPG one of the most devastating pediatric cancers. Although 75–85% of patients show some improvement in their symptoms after radiation therapy, DIPGs almost always begin to grow again (called recurrence, relapse, or progression). Clinical trials have reported that the median time between radiation therapy and progression is 5–8.8 months. Patients whose tumors begin to grow again may be eligible for experimental treatment through clinical trials to try to slow or stop the growth of the tumor. However, clinical trials have not shown any significant benefit from experimental DIPG therapies so far.

DIPGs that progress usually grow quickly and affect important parts of the brain. The median time from tumor progression to death is usually very short, between 1 and 4.5 months. During this time, doctors focus on palliative care: controlling symptoms and making the patient as comfortable as possible.

A blastoma is a type of cancer, more common in children, that is caused by malignancies in precursor cells, often called blasts. Examples are nephroblastoma, medulloblastoma and retinoblastoma. The suffix "-blastoma" is used to imply a tumor of primitive, incompletely differentiated (or precursor) cells, e.g., chondroblastoma is composed of cells resembling the precursor of chondrocytes.

Adult survivors of childhood cancer have some physical, psychological, and social difficulties.

Premature heart disease is a major long-term complication in adult survivors of childhood cancer. Adult survivors are eight times more likely to die of heart disease than other people, and more than half of children treated for cancer develop some type of cardiac abnormality, although this may be asymptomatic or too mild to qualify for a clinical diagnosis of heart disease.

A diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a tumour located in the pons (middle) of the brain stem. The brain stem is the bottommost portion of the brain, connecting the cerebrum with the spinal cord. The majority of brain stem tumours occur in the pons and are diffusely infiltrating (they grow amidst the nerves), and therefore cannot be surgically removed. Glioma is a general name for any tumour that arises from the supportive tissue called glia, which help keep the neurons in place and functioning well. The brain stem contains all of the afferent (incoming) neurons within the spinal cord, as well as important structures involved in eye movements and in face and throat muscle control and sensation.