MRI Patterns of Intracranial Meningiomas

"nIntroduction: Subtyping of meningiomas into benign, atypical and malignant entities is of supreme importance in respect to treatment options of surgery, radiation therapy, or a combination of the two. In addition, the embolization procedure for the feeding arteries is a successful consideration in most of the highly vascular or potentially more malignant meningiomas to evaluate the role of MRI in defining the characteristic pattern of intracranial meningiomas and to correlate MRI with the histopathological findings in an attempt to predict the histological diagnosis (subtype) prior to surgery. "nMaterials and Methods: A cross-sectional analytic study was performed on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of surgically and biopsy verified intracranial meningiomas in 62 patients (21 males and 41 females) in an attempt to predict the histological features. The study was done in Al-Jirahat Specialized Surgical Hospital and in Al-Sadir Teaching Hospital, department of radiology in Alnajaf Al-Ashraf city during a period between October 2005 and September 2007. "nResults: On MRI appearance, atypical and malignant meningiomas in contrast with the more benign histology had more heterogeneous signal intensity and enhancement in (80%) and (100%), respectively. Less obviously it showed meningioma cleft sign and more cystic appearances in (60%) and (100%), respectively. It was surrounded by marked edema (+++) degree, exerted more mass effect and invaded the dural venous sinus in almost all the cases. "nConclusion: Overall, MRI is an excellent non-invasive tool for the preoperative evaluation of intracranial meningiomas and it can predict the aggressive behavior of the more atypical and malignant meningiomas with a good degree of certainity. This study showed a lower rate of atypical and malignant meningiomas than other similar studies. Other findings are similar to other studies performed on intracranial meningiomas.