MRI FEATURES OF INTRACRANIAL SARCOIDOSIS MIMICKING MENINGIOMAS

We present three young African-American patients in whom magnetic reso nance imaging (MRI) showed dural based masses that were initially thou ght to represent meningiomas. Two patients underwent surgery and the d iagnosis of sarcoidosis was made. The third patient underwent a trial of steroids with considerable improvement of her symptoms. We suggest that sarcoidosis should always be considered in the differential diagn osis of dural-based masses which have MRI characteristics similar to t hose of meningiomas. The possibility of sarcoidosis should lead to app ropriate laboratory tests and therapy.