Intracranial meningiomas following irradiation--a growing problem?

We present 10 cases of meningiomas occurring after high-dose irradiation for other brain tumours. These constitute 3.7% of 272 patients with meningiomas treated in our unit over 10 years. The clinical and pathological features of the 10 cases were added to those of 69 previous cases documented in the literature and compared with the features of our 262 spontaneous meningiomas. The literature on 119 cases of low-dose radiation-induced meningiomas was also reviewed. Malignant histological features and multiplicity were more common in the radiation-induced meningiomas (p < 0.01). Increasing long-term survival rates following radiotherapy for primary intracranial tumours, particularly in childhood, may lead to an increased incidence of postirradiation meningiomas.