[Clinical course and results of surgical treatment of epidermoid and dermoid tumors].

Seventeen cases (7 males and 10 females) of intracranial epidermoid tumours and one case (a male) of intracranial dermoid tumours were described. The patients with epidermoids represented 1.7% and the patients with dermoids represented 0.1% of all patients operated from January 1989 to July 1998 because of intracranial tumours. The average age of the patients with epidermoid tumours was 44.5 and ranged from 17 to 69 years whereas in patient with dermoid it was 19 years. Twelve epidermoid tumours (70.6%) and one dermoid tumour (100%) were located at the basal cisterns of the brain, i.e. 4 epidermoid tumours were located at the cerebello-pontine angle, 4--in the suprasellar region, 3 (2 epidermoid and 1 dermoid tumours)--in the parasellar region, and 2 in the retrosellar region. Four epidermoid tumours (23.5%) were found intraventricularly while only one (5.9%) located in the cerebral hemisphere. Mainly symptoms of cranial nerves (II, V, VII, VIII) dysfunction were observed among the patients. The average duration of the symptomatic period was 3 years. All operations were performed in a single stage using microneurosurgical techniques. Radical removal was possible in nine cases (50%) while in other nine cases the removal was subtotal. Two patients (11.1%) died in the postoperative period. Mean follow-up for the patients was 3.3 years. Among the patient three (16.7%) had a recurrence of the tumor and were operated on again. In 14 patients (72.2%) the results were very good and good. There was no difference of statistical significance of the results between patients with total and subtotal removal of tumours.