The molecular classification of adult diffuse glioma: a review

Starting from the Classification Instruction of 2007 World Health Organization, this work review developments in molecular classification of adult diffuse glioma in the past two decades．A significant change in the classification scheme of glioma occurred: from clinical and histological classification to molecular classification combined with physiology．Some of the discoveries in molecular characteristics of glioma and karyotype features have prompted the classification schemes to deepen into the nature of glioma．On top of this, the classification scheme based on models of development of brain, rather than classification scheme based on histology, will be the future direction of glioma classification．