Misdiagnosis and Delay of Diagnosis in Hemorrhagic Meningioma: A Case Series and Review of the Literature

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the clinicoradiologic characteristics of hemorrhagic meningiomas (HMs) that are missed or misdiagnosed on radiologic imaging studies.

Methods: Clinical and radiologic data from 6 patients with HM who were initially misdiagnosed were collected and recorded respectively. In addition, we performed a literature review for misdiagnosed HM and summarized the results.

Results: Five of the 6 patients with misdiagnosed HM were female, and 1 was male. Both computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging were performed in 4 patients, and CT alone was performed in 2. On CT, the HM was heterogeneously hyperdense in 5 patients and isodense in 1 patient. In all 4 patients who underwent magnetic resonance imaging, the HM was mixed iso- and hypointense on T1-weighted imaging and heterogeneously hyperintense on T2-weighted imaging. Marked heterogeneous contrast enhancement was observed in 2 patients, strong rim enhancement in 1, and peripheral enhancement in 1. The dural tail sign was seen in only 1 patient. The initial radiologic misdiagnoses were subdural hematoma (n = 1), malignant glioma (n = 1), ruptured arterial aneurysm (n = 1), metastasis (n = 2), and uncertain (n = 1). In the literature review, 22 cases of HM diagnostic error were collected. The main misdiagnoses were subdural hematoma (27.3%), traumatic hematoma (13.6%), vascular anomaly (13.6%), malignant glioma (4.5%), and metastasis (4.5%).

Conclusions: Our study showed that in patients with HM with inadequate imaging evaluation, a small tumor associated with massive hematoma and atypical imaging features was more likely to be misdiagnosed.

Keywords: Computed tomography; Hemorrhage; Magnetic resonance imaging; Meningioma; Misdiagnosis.