Clinical Study of Intracranial Meningioma

Choi, Byung Ook; Kim, Soo Hyu; Sim, Chae Hong

Abstract

To provide a guideline of accurate diagnosis and proper methods of treatment of meningioma, the most common benign intracranial tumor, the author studied 57 cases of meningioma who had been diagnosed and operated at the Department of Neurosurgery, Inje Medical College, Paik Hospital, Pusan from July, 1983 to June, 1988. The results were as followings. 1) The ratio of male to female was 1 to 2.2 and 31.6% of the 57 patients were in the 5 th decade of age and 29.8% in the 6 th decade. 2) The predilection sites were parasagittal and falx(33.3%), convexity(26.3%) and sphenoid ridge (21.1%) areas. The most frequent histological type was meningotheliomatous type(47.4%) which was followed by transitional(15.8%) and fibroblastic(10.5%) type. 3) The common initial clinical features were headache(29.3%), visual disturbance(24.6%), seizure(22.8%) and motor weakness(10.5%). In radiologic diagnostic tests, there were abnormal findings in 47.4% on plain skull X-ray, the possibility of diagnosis as the meningioma was 91.2% by means of brain CT scan only, which was regarded as the most accurate and safe method. 4) The extent of operation were total(84.2%), subtotoal(12.3%) and partial(3.5%) removal, The surgical outcome were excellent(49.1%) and good(29.8%). 5) The preoperative embolization of feeding artery was effective to reduce the operative bleeding, and the CO2 laser was thought to be effective surgical tool to remove the meningioma, with its unique properties of non-mechanical bloodless evaporation of tumor and minimalizing of brain edema.