Acta Neuropathol (2012) 123:465–472 DOI 10.1007/s00401-011-0922-z C O N S E N S U S P A P E R Molecular subgroups of medulloblastoma: the current consensus Michael D. Taylor • Paul A. Northcott • Andrey Korshunov • Marc Remke • Yoon-Jae Cho • Steven C. Clifford • Charles G. Eberhart • D. Williams Parsons • Stefan Rutkowski • Amar Gajjar • David W. Ellison • Peter Lichter • Richard J. Gilbertson • Scott L. Pomeroy • Marcel Kool • Stefan M. Pﬁster Received: 6 October 2011 / Revised: 19 November 2011 / Accepted: 22 November 2011 / Published online: 2 December 2011 The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Medulloblastoma, a small blue cell malignancy of the cerebellum, is a major cause of morbidity and mor- tality in pediatric oncology. Current mechanisms for clinical prognostication and stratiﬁcation include clinical factors (age, presence of metastases, and extent of resection) as well as histological subgrouping (classic, desmoplastic, and large cell/anaplastic histology). Transcriptional proﬁling studies of medulloblastoma cohorts from several research groups around the globe have suggested the existence of multiple distinct molecular subgroups that differ in their demo- graphics, transcriptomes, somatic genetic events, and clinical outcomes. Variations in the number, composition, and nature of the subgroups between studies brought about a consensus conference in Boston in the fall of 2010. Dis- cussants at the conference came to a consensus that the evidence supported the existence of four main subgroups of M. D. Taylor (&) Division of Neurosurgery, Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada e-mail: mdtaylor@sickkids.ca M. D. Taylor P. A. Northcott Program in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre, Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada A. Korshunov Clinical Cooperation Unit Neuropathology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany M. Remke P. Lichter M. Kool S. M. Pﬁster (&) Division of Molecular Genetics, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany e-mail: s.pﬁster@dkfz.de M. Remke S. M. Pﬁster Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany Y.-J. Cho Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, USA S. C. Clifford Northern Institute for Cancer Research, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK C. G. Eberhart Departments of Pathology, Ophthalmology and Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA D. W. Parsons Department of Pediatrics, Texas Children’s Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA S. Rutkowski Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany A. Gajjar Department of Oncology, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, USA D. W. Ellison Department of Pathology, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, USA R. J. Gilbertson Department of Developmental Neurobiology, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, USA S. L. Pomeroy Department of Neurology, Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA 123