The role of advanced MR methods in the diagnosis of cerebral amyloidoma

Abstract

Amyloidoma is a term referring to a tumor-like deposition of extracellular insoluble fibrillar protein. Tumor-like amyloid formation in the brain had been described in isolated cases. However no advanced radiological studies to characterize these lesions have been reported. In the report, we have describe a 59-year-old woman, presented several months prior to diagnosis with memory decline, dizziness, walking instability, and speech difficulties. MRI revealed a left basal ganglia lesion with an intraventricular component. The patient underwent a stereotactic biopsy, which confirmed the diagnosis of amyloidoma, an extensive radiographic characterization of amyloidoma using advanced MR techniques was done, including magnetic resonance spectroscopy, dynamic susceptibility contrast, susceptibility weighted image (SWI), and magnetization transfer (MTR). All advanced MR techniques were able to characterize the amyloidoma as a non-neoplastic process. This is an example where such methods can be used for differential diagnosis of atypical brain lesions.

Brain Amyloidoma: Case Report and Literature Review

“…Although seizure was a frequent onset, often linked with a normal neurological examination, signs and symptoms of intracranial hypertension have rarely been mentioned [7] [53]. Many patients present cognitive dysfunction and neurological deficits including gait disturbances [8] [26] [38], motor deficits [7] [8] [17] [20] [36], dizziness [50] visual trouble [4] [25] [26] [35] [45] [49], hallucination [7], resulting from disturbance of cortex or white matter functions.…”

“…Because some amyloidomas have recurred after surgical resection [29] and biopsied lesions have shown growth with [36] [38] [53] or without clinical wors-ening [17] [20] [41] [47] brain radiation therapy is another way to be considered as in some cases it provided disease control [8] [38] [44] [50].…”