Metrizamide-Enhanced Computed Tomography of Intracranial Arachnoid Cysts

Congenital Arachnoid Cysts in Children

“…The options are no intervention in asymp tomatic patients, simple aspiration, burr hole and fenes tration, placing a shunt, ventriculocystostomy, cranio tomy with wide excision of the membrane and establish ment of communication with the subarachnoid cisterns [6,11,14,22,34,43,45], Some advocate not operating on asymptomatic cyst [8,13,19,43], some operating on all patients [27], Once the decision to operate has been made, radiological evaluation is employed to aid in the treatment [3,9,10,13,19,27,46,52]. Among the various surgical options available the merits and demerits of shunting and craniotomy have been strongly debated [27,[31][32][33].…”

Intracranial Arachnoid Cysts

“…7). Two moderate-sized sylvian fis sure cysts had delayed entry and washout of met rizamide, with negligible filling at 1 h, some filling at 3 h, maximum enhancement at 6 h, and failure to clear contrast for 24 h. Two large sylvian fissure arachnoid cysts never opacified with contrast, while a third large cyst filled later and less densely than did any of the small or medium cysts; peak concentration was not reached for 24 h. Ruscalleda et al [39], Wolpert and Scott [49] and Crisi et al [7] also observed rapidly and slowly com municating cysts and an inverse relationship between cyst size and speed of filling. At present, it is believed that rapidly communicating arachnoid cysts do not re quire surgical therapy.…”

Intracranial arachnoid cysts: Clinical study with the findings of 32 surgically treated cases

“…In our series, middle cranial fossa ACs were also 50 % (17/34) and most of them were on the left side [5,[13][14][15][16][17] (Table 1). ACs are also classified as communicating or non-communicating according to their relation to the subarachnoid space [7,17,18]. A classification of AC for middle cranial fossa described by Galassi et al [19] is another important classification according to CT and computed tomography cisternography (CTC) findings ( Fig.…”

“…The diagnosis of ACs is usually confirmed by CT or MRI [7,16,32]. Plain radiographic findings are nonspecific and have low sensitivity in the diagnosis of ACs, although changes in skull contour may be detected on skull radiographs performed for other indications, such as trauma [1,5].…”

“…They occur in the cerebrospinal axis in relation to the arachnoid membrane (brain or spine) and do not communicate with the ventricular system [1][2][3][4][5]. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have demonstrated an increased number of cases [6][7][8]. Most intracranial ACs are found incidentally and can be managed conservatively.…”