Primary extracranial meningioma of the foot: A case report

We present a rare case of primary extracranial meningioma in a 36-year-old man, who had a solitary multinodular mass located in the plantar muscle of the foot. The histology of specimens from simple excision was typical of me ningioma, showing bland spindle cell proliferation with a whorl pattern. Im munohistochemical analysis demonstrated that the tumor cells showed diffuse and strong positivity for epithelial membrane antigen as well as moderate reactivity for cytokeratin and vimentin, Ultrastructurally, the tumor cells were characterized by thin bipolar cytoplasmic processes and joined by mul tiple small desmosomes, There were frequent pinocytotic vesicles and a dist inct external lamina on the cell surface. These findings suggest that this primary ectopic meningioma, arising in the soft tissue, may have been deriv ed from perineurial cells of the peripheral nerve, but was morphologically distinguishable from perineurioma. Primary extracranial meningioma should b e included in the differential diagnosis of soft-tissue spindle cell tumors , especially those of peripheral nerve origin.