Posterior fossa gangliocytoma with facial nerve invasion: case report.

A 5 year-old boy with a cerebellar gangliocytoma with a peripheral right facial paresis and ataxia is presented. His MRI showed a heterogenous, diffuse lesion, isointense on T1 and hyperintense on T2-weigthed sequences, involving the right cerebellar hemisphere with direct extension into the right facial nerve. The present case is the first description of a gangliocytoma with direct facial nerve invasion, as demonstrated for the facial nerve paresis and supported by MRI and surgical inspection.

[Magnetic resonance imaging of the intraventricular cavernomas: diagnostic aspects].

Cavernomas are vascular malformations that typically affect the white matter of cerebral hemispheres and brain stem. They are angiographically occult lesions that depend on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for their diagnosis, presenting a hypointense perilesional ring caused by hemossiderin deposition as seen in T2 sequences. The ventricular location is rare, and image features may differ.

Primary pituitary abscess: case report.

Pituitary abscesses are potentially life-threatening lesions if not appropriately diagnosed and treated. The authors have operated on more than five hundred cases of pituitary tumors and only one represented a case of pituitary abscess. A 35-year-old woman was investigated for chronic frontal headache.

[Prognostic factors in the treatment of intramedullary spinal cord tumors].

Between 1993 and 1999, in the Divisions of Neurosurgery of the Hospital Nossa Senhora das Graças and the Hospital de Clínicas in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil, 35 patients harboring intramedullary spinal cord tumors who were submitted to microsurgery were analyzed. There were 24 males (68.6%) and average age was 32.