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Background: The natural history of diffuse astrocytomas is thought to have a median time to malignant progression of 4–5 years. Nonetheless, the genetic changes in non-progressive tumors is still being established. Case description: We describe a 22 year old female with gross total resection of a left frontal astrocytoma followed by radiation and chemotherapy in 1993. Twenty-five years later she remains stable, without recurrence. Retrospective microarray comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) found a 28.6 Mb duplication at 3q26.2q29 and a 9.9 Mb deletion at 20p12.1p11.1. Conclusions: The case illustrates the importance of young age and gross total resection in determining the prognosis of patients with astrocytomas. It also illustrates that occasional variance of natural history may be associated with unique genomic changes. Keywords: Astrocytoma, Long term survival, Chromosome 3p duplication, Chromosome 20p deletion