Intravascular large B-cell lymphoma of central nervous system - a report of two cases and literature review.

Intravascular large B-cell lymphoma (IVL) is a rare form of diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DBCL) frequently presenting with skin and/or central nervous system (CNS) involvement. IVL involves CNS in 75 - 85% of patients and neurological symptoms include sensory and motor deficits or neuropathies, meningoradiculitis, paresthesia, hypostenia, aphasia, dysarthria, hemiparesis, seizures, transient visual loss, vertigo and impaired cognitive function. Neuroimaging discloses CNS involvement only in half of patients with neurological symptoms because there are no pathognomonic neuroradiological findings for IVL; ischemic foci are the most common presentation pattern and therefore vasculitis is the most common differential diagnosis. According to all mentioned data, diagnosis of CNS IVL requires a histopathological confirmation. Brain biopsy is absolutely indicated in patients with progressive neurological deterioration with unclear abnormalities in cerebral MR imaging. A general policy is that patients with IVL should be considered to have disseminated disease and should be treated with systemic chemotherapy. In younger patients with unfavorable features the high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell transplantation should be used. Nevertheless, the course of IVL is rapidly progressive and ultimately fatal.

Hormone receptors in benign intracranial meningiomas.

PURPOSE: Although some embryologic data suggest that the neural crest elements, which are not a target tissue for estrogen and progesterone, participate in the forming of meningothelial cells, meningiomas show hormone receptors. The aim of this study was to investigate the estrogen (ER) and progesterone receptors (PR) content of benign meningiomas (WHO grade I) which were completely resected. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Paraffin-embedded tissue sections of 30 intracranial meningiomas were examined immunohistochemically using monoclonal antibodies for ER and PR. RESULTS: All 30 (100%) tumor samples were ER-negative. Seventeen (57%) of them were positive for PR. These receptors were found in 8 of 17 (47.50%) tumors in female patients and in 9 of 13 (69.23%) tumors in male patients (Mann-Whitney p <0.05). Age, localization of tumors and histological subtype did not correlate with PR status. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated complete absence of ER in benign meningiomas. In contrast, PR were positive in more than half of the patients. PR positivity was significantly higher in male patients.

Papillary glioneuronal tumor: unexplored entity.

Papillary glioneuronal tumors represent a new and rare entity of an uncommon morphologic subtype of low-grade mixed neuronal-glial neoplasms with an unclear etiology. They are described as benign lesions with extraventricular localization. We report the second case of papillary glioneuronal tumor with recurrent nature after gross-total resection, and the third case of this tumor with intraventricular localization. While conventional magnetic resonance imaging of papillary glioneuronal tumors is well described in literature, there are no data based on advanced magnetic resonance techniques. The present article represents a review of clinicopathological and both conventional and advanced magnetic resonance imaging characteristics of papillary glioneuronal tumors, with focus on 2 cases with atypical course and localization.