Discussion
Diagnosis With Brief Discussion
- Diagnosis
- Epidural Hemangioma
- Radiologic Findings
- Well circumscribed mass on the left side of thoracic vertebra is noted. On CT, the mass is attached to the costovertebral junction, and the medial part of the mass is enhanced very well. The mass shows a dumbbell shape with both intra- and extraspinal components. MR shows the low- to iso-signal intensity on T1 weighted scan, high signal intensity on T2 weighted scan and strong enhancement on postenhanced T1 weighted image. The lobulated contour of mass is also noted. Increased vascularity was noted during operative removal of the mass.
- Brief Review
- Primary epidural hemangiomas without adjacent vertebral involvement are rare, accounting for <4% of all spinal epidural masses. Capillary hemangiomas are the more common form, however cases of these in the epidural locations are very rare. The pathologic features are as follow; these lesions consist of capillary-sized vessels lined with flattened endothelium separated by a collagenous stroma. The most frequent level is the thoracic region, followed by the lumbar and cervical regions. The morphologic features of epidural hemangiomas are the lobulated contour of tumors, and this findings help to be differentiated from the neurogenic tumors which have smooth contour. On MR, the tumor is isointense to the spinal cord on T1-weighted images and hyperintense on T2-weighted images and showed homogeneous, strong enhancement.
- References
- 1. Shin JH, Lee HK, Rhim SC et al. Spinal epidural cavernous hemangioma: MR findings. J Comput Assist Tomogr, 25(2): 257-261.
2. Gupta S, Kumar S, Banerji D, et al. Magnetic resonance imaging features of an epidural spinal haemangioma. Austral Radiol, 40:342-344
3. Shin JH, Lee HK, Sang RJ et al. Spinal intradural capillary hemangioma: MR findings. Am J Neuroradiol, 21: 954-956
- Keywords
- Paravertebral, Benign tumor,