Dermoid and Epidermoid Tumors (Cholesteatomas) of the Central Nervous System

Long-term results of surgical treatment of cerebello-pontine angle epidermoids

“…The slow growth and soft consistency of the tumour enable it to adapt to the neurovascular structures of the cerebello-pontine angle (cpa), and therefore clinical symptoms are slow to arise. The primary surgical objective is to evacuate the cyst content and to remove the non-adherent portions of the capsule 2, 3, 14,22,24,26,28,29,33 We report on a series of 17 patients operated on for removal of a cpa epidermoid cyst, with a mean followup among patients still living of 9 years (range 1 to 20 years).…”

Pearly Tumours in Relation to the Central Nervous System

“…If they occur later, during the formation of the secondary cerebral vesicles, they tend to lie laterally away from the midline (Bostroem, 1897). Should implantation occur after the cerebral cortex and cerebellum have formed, the rests may be deposited in mesodermal structures between skin and brain and give rise to the epidural, intradiploic, and pericranial tumours (Harvey and Burr, 1926;Rand and Reeves, 1943).…”

A supratentorial, hemorrhagic, intraparenchymal epidermoid cyst

“…[9][10][11] Most of these reports were derived from autopsy and pre-CT era publications. [12][13][14] Table 1 identifies the reported cases of frontal, intraparenchymal, epidermoid cysts identified via MRI and/or CT imaging. Our report of a frontal, intraparenchymal epidermoid is of particular interest because of the associated hematoma.…”

“…This is partly supported by prior reports of asymptomatic intradural metastases 13 and those that were discovered during autopsy only. 14,15 This suggests that the clinically significant proportion of intradural drop metastases might be low, rather than the absolute number. Once again, current evidence is only suggestive and the low number of cases makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions.…”

“…[3][4][5][6] Common locations include skin, bone, lung and lymph nodes. 3 However, intradural drop metastases are extraordinarily rare; there are only six other reported cases in life, 7-13 another three which were discovered on autopsy [14][15][16] and one where the discovery was made concurrently with the initial diagnosis. 17 …”