Atypical Teratoid Rhabdoid Tumor of Spinal Cord: A Clinical Case

Background. Atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor (AT/RT) of the central nervous system (CNS) is an aggressive malignant tumor, mostly affecting children younger than 3 years old. AT/RT is characterized by the deletion and/or mutation of gene SMARCB1/INI1, located in the long arm 22q11, leading to a loss of the nuclear expression of protein INI1, which may be detected by immunohistochemical assay with the anti-INI1 antibody. These tumors are mostly located in the brain, and their incidence in the spinal cord is very rare, with just a few publications on their clinical observations.Description of a Clinical Case. A clinical example of AT/RT in a two-year patient with the tumor located in the thoracic and lumbar spinal cord is described. The patient underwent surgical treatment consisting in the tumor resection and also chemoradiotherapy. Evaluation showed complete response. By the moment this paper was written, the duration of event-free survival of this patient was 27 months.Conclusion. This paper reviews the earlier published cases of spinal cord AT/RT, in which the most common location of the tumor was the cervical portion of the spinal cord. The maximum overall survival was 18 months, and the average overall survival was 9 months. In our clinical example, we demonstrate a long-term complete response to the multimodal treatment for AT/RT.