Synchronous intracranial arteriovenous malformation and papillary glioneuronal tumour: hypothesis or reality?

Abstract

Brain arteriovenous malformations (AVM) rarely occur with spatial and/or temporal co-localisation to intracranial neoplasms. Most prior reports describe this association with high-grade gliomas; however, reports of a co-occurrence with low grade gliomas are very rare. It is unclear whether such cases represent a true co-occurrence of separate pathologies or simply an unusually vascular phenotype of the neoplasm. Most such reports pre-date the era of molecularly defined gliomas. We present the first report of the spatial and temporal co-occurrence of an intracranial arteriovenous malformation traversing and within a papillary glioneuronal tumour, molecularly defined by the presence of SLC44A1::PRKCA fusion. This case was successfully managed by resection of both lesions adhering to the principles of AVM surgery. It is possible these exceptionally rare co-occurrences may have common underlying molecular drivers relating to the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway.