The positive effects of surgery on symptomatic stereotactic radiation-induced peritumoral brain edema: A report of three cases

Background: Peritumoral brain edema is an uncommon but life-threatening side effect of brain tumors radiosurgery. Medical therapy usually alleviates symptoms until edema spontaneously disappears. However, when peritumoral brain edema endangers the patient’s life or medical therapy fails to guarantee an acceptable quality of life, surgery might be considered. Case Description: Our report focuses on three patients who developed extensive peritumoral brain edema after radiosurgery. Two were affected by vestibular schwannomas and one by a skull-base meningioma. Peritumoral brain edema worsened despite maximal medical therapy in all cases; therefore, surgical removal of the radiated lesion was carried out. In the first patient, surgery was overdue and resulted in a fatal outcome. On the other hand, in the latter two cases surgery was quickly effective. In all three cases, an unmanageable brain swelling was not found at surgery. Conclusion: Surgical removal of brain tumors previously treated with radiosurgery was safe and effective in resolving shortly peritumoral brain edema. This solution should be considered in patients who do not respond to medical therapy and before worsening of clinical conditions. Interestingly, the expected brain swelling was not confirmed intraoperatively. In our experience, this magnetic resonance finding should not be considered a criterion to delay surgery.

Persistent trigeminal artery: angio-tomography and angio-magnetic resonance finding

The trigeminal artery (TA) is the most common embryonic carotid-vertebrobasilar anastomosis to persist into adulthood. It typically extends from the internal carotid artery to the basilar artery. Persistent primitive arteries are usually found incidentally, but are often associated with vascular malformation, cerebral aneurysm and, in case of TA, with trigeminal neuralgia. We present one patient with TA as a cause of trigeminal neuralgia and in other three as an incidental finding, on TC and MR angiograms.