• Low power view of a cellular tumor showing a "chicken wire fence" type of stroma breaking the tumor into small lobules.

• This stromal pattern is common in the oligodendroglioma.

•The etiology of the oligodendroglioma is unknown but most tumors show abnormalties of chromosome 19 and 1.

•See Etiology.

•Oligodendrogliomas make up about 5% of intracranial tumors and 10% of gliomas.

•They are relatively slow growing except for the anaplastic variety which is rare.

•Oligodendrogliomas act as mass lesions, infiltrating areas of brain.

•If they infiltrate the motor area, there are seizures of a focal motor type or hemiparesis.

•Infiltrating sensory regions may produce sensory symptoms or misinterpretations.

•They also are associated with edema so can produce herniation.
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•Oligodendrogliomas are grey gelatinous masses in the brain that act as mass lesions.

•They are more comman in the cerebral hemispheres.

•The tumor is made up of uniform oval cells with clear to pale pink cytoplasm and relatively uniform oval to round nuclei that have a fried egg or "box like" appearance.

•The stroma is made up of capillaries having a chickenwire appearance between groups of tumor cells.

•There is no good grading system and no specific immunoperoxidase stain to identify them.

• Cotran RS, Kumar V, Robbins SL: Robbins Pathologic Basis of Disease. 5th ed. Philadelphia, W.B. Saunders, 1994, pp. 1343-1345.

• Poirer J et.al. Manual of basic neuropathology. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1990, pp.26-27.

• Current literature from PubMed at National Library of Medicine