[Multiple intracranial meningiomas].

AIMS

Multiple meningiomas is a condition in which the patient had more than one meningioma in several intracranial locations in the same patient without signs of neurofibromatosis. The incidence of multiple intracranial meningiomas varies from 1 to 10% in different series. In this article we report our experience with the diagnosis and treatment of multiple meningioma.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

The authors report 13 cases of multiple intracranial meningioma, consecutively operated on at our hospital between 1983-2003. All the patients were studied with CT and the last 10 with MRI. In 8 patients all of the tumours were found at the first admission. In the other five the diagnosis was not established until years after removal of the first meningioma. All the patients showed no manifestations of von Recklinghausen disease.

RESULTS

The overall average age at diagnosis was 53.3 years: 7 were females and 6 males. The predominant site for the meningioma was the parasagittal and falcine region, followed by the cerebral convexity. Thirty-two meningiomas were treated with surgical extirpation and in four cases the treatment was radiotherapy.

CONCLUSIONS

Multiple meningiomas are not a specific disease entity and have no distinctive clinical, pathological or surgical features. Despite the multiplicity of sites, multiple meningiomas do not differ in prognosis from benign solitary meningiomas.