THE DELETION OF 22Q13 REGION IN BOTH INTRACRANIAL AND SPINAL MENINGIOMAS IN A PATIENT (CASE-REPORT)

We present a 69 year old man with two simultaneous meningiomas in diff erent compartment of neural axis, in both of which 22q13 locus is lost . Histologically the two tumours appeared to be different; meningothel iomatous and transitional with psammoma bodies, respectively. No numer ical or structural chromosome abnormalities were seen in karyotype ana lysis of the cultured spinal and cranial meningioma samples. Since lon g arm structural aberrations and/or whole loss of chromosome 22 are fr equently reported abnormalities of meningiomas, the tumours were also analysed by fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) with different c olour-labelled probes in respect to relevant chromosome. The metaphase s and interphase nuclei of the samples were evaluated by the combined biotinylated 22q11 and digoxigenin-labelled 22q13 locus specific FISH probes, and 22q13 deletion was revealed in both of spinal and cranial tumour cells. In conclusion, since both tumours from the presented cas e show the same genetic alterations, multiplicity may be derived from the same clone of cells? and support the theory of development of mult iple meningiomas from the spreading of tumour cells via cerebrospinal fluid as a possible mechanism. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All righ ts reserved.