This case highlights the importance of prompt diagnosis and treatment, because chordoid meningiomas exhibit a more aggressive biological behavior, with the potential to cause significant morbidity because of mass effect and higher risk of recurrence. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a rare case of a chordoid meningioma in the anterior temporal lobe that presented as a compressive optic neuropathy. The details of this case are presented with a review of relevant literature.
Giant cell arteritis has been considered an enigmatic disease. It is characterised by chronic granulomatous inflammation of the walls of large and medium-sized arteries. The process has a predilection for the extradural cranial arteries, which include the ophthalmic and the posterior ciliary arteries. It is a multi-symptom disease of older individuals and patients often present with challenging issues and diagnostic dilemmas. We review the literature and latest protocols for the diagnosis and management of giant cell arteritis.
A 66 year-old woman presented with a pupil-sparing partial third cranial nerve palsy with aberrant regeneration. Imaging revealed a cystic lesion in the right cavernous sinus, demonstrating signal characteristics consistent with arachnoid cyst. Oculomotor synkinesis and a pupil-sparing third cranial nerve palsy from an arachnoid cyst of the cavernous sinus have not been previously reported. Intracavernous arachnoid cysts are in the differential diagnosis of cranial nerve III palsies, with and without synkinesis or pupil involvement.
Introduction: Optic nerve sheath meningiomas and intracavernous arachnoid cysts are both fairly rare conditions, and to the best of our knowledge, have not been previously reported to co-occur in the same patient. Both can cause diplopia, but only ONSMs have been documented to demonstrate progressive worsening of ocular motility. Case Report: A 67-year-old woman with blur and diplopia demonstrated a right optic neuropathy and limited ductions bilaterally. Neuroimaging revealed a right optic nerve sheath meningioma and left intracavernous arachnoid cyst. She was conservatively managed with neurosurgical surveillance for 1.5 years, until her diplopia worsened. Ocular motility re-evaluation demonstrated a worsening left abduction deficit, suggesting interval change of the intracavernous cyst, rather than the meningioma. Conclusion: There are only a few reported cases of cranial nerve VI palsy secondary to a cavernous sinus arachnoid cyst. However, this is the first reported case in a patient with a concurrent optic nerve sheath meningioma, and the first case demonstrating progressive worsening of a sixth cranial nerve palsy from an intracavernous arachnoid cyst. Determining which comorbidity caused worsening of symptoms played a critical role in the management of this patient.
Neurosyphilis can occur at any stage of infection and needs to be considered in the differential diagnosis for many visual and ocular problems, especially in the setting of other systemic signs and symptoms. In this case, the combination of light-near dissociation and optic neuropathy with hearing loss was instrumental in dismissing the past diagnosis of functional vision loss and in pursuing the diagnosis of neurosyphilis. A timely diagnosis of neurosyphilis needs to be made to prevent devastating vision loss as seen in this case.
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