The role of advanced MRI techniques in differentiating typical, from atypical and malignant meningiomas

BackgroundMeningiomas are the commonest primary, non-glial intracranial tumors. The diagnosis is often correctly predicted from characteristic imaging appearances. Some meningiomas have atypical imaging appearance that may cause diagnostic confusion.AimIs to evaluate the role of advanced MR imaging techniques in differentiating typical from atypical and malignant meningiomas before surgery.PatientThirty patients were retrospectively included in this study. They were referred from Neurosurgery Department and all of them suspected to have intracranial meningioma according to the contrast enhanced CT.MethodsAll patients were subjected to conventional magnetic resonance imaging followed by advanced magnetic resonance imaging in the form of diffusion weighted imaging, perfusion weighted imaging and MR spectroscopy by single-voxel techniques.ResultsThe overall results based on differentiation of typical from atypical and malignant meningiomas by advanced MRI techniques. Twenty four patients had typical meningioma and 6 patients had atypical and malignant Meningiomas by advanced MRI techniques.ConclusionAppearance of meningiomas on DWIs and the calculation of ADC values could be correlated with their histopathological grading. On MRS, alanine was not found to be increased in all meningiomas, so MRS cannot reliably differentiate typical intracranial meningomas from atypical meningiomas.