Cranial Meningiomas in the Nigerian African

Abstract

Thirty-eight symptomatic cranial meningiomas have been verified in thirty-live ndigenous Nigerians evenly distributed in the second to the fifth decade of life. Headaches, increased intracranial pressure, grand mal seizures, hemiparesis and impaired consciousness were frequently observed. Parkinsonian tremors were noted unilaterally in one patient. Nearly two-thirds (63-15%) of the lesions were located at the vault in the various sectors of the convexity and the falx cerebri. However, most of the basal lesions were located along the sphenoidal wing. Of the thirty-eight masses, 44-13% were of the syncytial type and about half as many as were psammomatous. Of the thirty-one patients treated by intracapsular or total tumour removal, 84% have improved and a few have fully returned to normal life. The meningiomas remain the single most common histologic type of all intracranial neoplasms in Ibadan. In the scries of 186 various masses identified they form 18-82%, and arc 29-9% of all the primary neoplasms of the brain.