MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING (MRI) PATTERNS OF INTRACRANIAL MENINGIOMAS�RG

Abstract

Subtyping of Meningiomas into benign, atypical and malignant entities is of supreme importance in respect to treatment options of surgery, radiation therapy, or a combination of the two, in addition to that, embolization procedure for the feeding arteries is a successful consideration in most of the highly vascular or potentially more malignant meningiomas to evaluate the role of MRI in defining the characteristic pattern of intracranial meningiomas and to correlate MRI with the histopathological findings in an attempt to predict the histological diagnosis (subtype) prior to surgery. A cross-sectional analytic study was performed on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of surgically and biopsy verified intracranial meningiomas in 62 patients (21 males and 41 females) in an attempt to predict the histological features. The study was done in Al-Jirahat Specialized Surgical Hospital and in Al-Sadir teaching Hospital, department of radiology beside Alameer MR private center in Alnajaf AlAshraf city during a period between October 2002 and September 2005. On MRI appearance, atypical and malignant meningiomas in contrast with the more benign histology had more heterogeneous signal intensity and enhancement in (80%) and (100%) respectively, less obviously showed meningioma cleft sign, more cystic appearance in (60%) and (100%) respectively, surrounded by marked edema (+++) degree, exert more mass effect and invade the dural venous sinus in almost all the cases. Overall, MRI is an excellent non-invasive tool for the preoperative evaluation of intracranial meningiomas and can predict with a good degree of certainity the aggressive behavior of the more atypical and malignant meningiomas. This study showed lower rate of atypical and malignant meningiomas than other similar studies. Other findings are similar to what have been found in other studies performed on intracranial meningiomas.