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Spinal intradural extramedullary haemangioma: MRI and neurosurgical findings.

Crispino M, Vecchioni S, Galli G, Olivetti L

Departement of Radiology, Istituti Ospitalieri, Cremona, Italy. m.crispino@inwind.it

Haemangiomas, have rarely been encountered in the spinal intradural extramedullary space and the MRI findings of this entity have been described only in a few cases. We present the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and surgical findings of a rare case of intradural extramedullary cavernous angioma located at the T1-T2 level in a 65-year-old man presented progressive paraparesis and upper thoracic back pain. On MRI, a well-circumscribed intradural solid mass, 1 cm in diameter, was detected and another enhancing nodular mass was found at the nerve roots of the cauda equina. The thoracic spinal lesion was removed and the histological diagnosis confirmed cavernous haemangioma. Although very uncommon, haemangioma should be included in the differential diagnosis when a spinal intradural extramedullary lesion is discovered and some neuroradiological findings could allow a presumptive diagnosis.

Published 17 October 2005 in Acta Neurochir (Wien), 147(11): 1195-8; discussion 1198.
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