Intracranial meningiomas: correlations between MR imaging and histology

The authors have examined the relationship between magnetic resonance imagi ng (MRI) and histopathological features in 35 surgically verified intracran ial meningiomas. Tumor signals on T1-weighted images were rather similar re gardless of the histologic subtype of the tumors. On T2-weighted images, hy pointense meningiomas were mainly fibroblastic and hyperintense tumors were mainly syncytial and angioblastic, and partly transitional. Isointense tum ors were mainly transitional and partly fibroblastic and syncytial. The aut hors conclude that the signal intensity of the MRI may be useful in the pre operative characterization of intracranial meningiomas. T1-weighted images may predict the presence of cysts and intratumoral blood vessels; whereas T 2-weighted images can give information about histological subtype, vascular ity and consistency. Meningiomas hyperintense to the cortex on T2 are usual ly soft, more vascular and more frequently of syncytial or angioblastic sub type; tumors hypointense or hypo-isointense on T2 tend to have a more hard consistency and are more often of fibroblastic or transitional subtype. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.