• World Neurosurg · Feb 2019

    Review Case Reports

    Primary Diffuse Leptomeningeal Melanomatosis: Case Report and Review of the Literature.

    • Daniel G Eichberg, Justin K Achua, Eduardo Locatelli, Ashish H Shah, Ricardo J Komotar, and Ali J Ghods.
    • Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA. Electronic address: daniel.eichberg@jhsmiami.org.
    • World Neurosurg. 2019 Feb 1; 122: 648-655.

    BackgroundPrimary diffuse leptomeningeal melanomatosis (PDLM) is an extremely rare pathologic condition that can mimic several other neurologic disease states.MethodsWe report a rare case of PDLM without evidence of a primary focus. In addition, we performed a comprehensive review of the literature to describe all previously reported cases of PDLM.ResultsIn the reported case, making the diagnosis of PDLM was difficult. A brain and frontal dural biopsy was nondiagnostic. Computed tomography of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis did not show any distinct solitary mass. After a positron emission tomography scan was performed that showed lumbar sacral enhancement, lumbar dorsal rootlet biopsy was initiated, which was diagnostic of PDLM. Our literature review found 32 previously reported cases of PDLM. Sixteen cases (48.5%) had a distinct focus or mass discovered on imaging workup. The reported case was the seventeenth reported case of PDLM without a distinct focus or mass found on imaging workup.ConclusionsPDLM is an extremely rare disease, and diagnosis is difficult because of nonspecific clinical, radiographic, and laboratory findings. In approximately half of cases, no distinct mass is shown on imaging workup, which may further complicate diagnosis. PDLM should be on the differential diagnosis for cases of diffuse dural enhancement. Neurosurgical intervention is often limited to ventriculoperitoneal shunting for increased intracranial pressure and dural and cranial biopsy to obtain diagnosis. If the initial biopsy is nondiagnostic, hypermetabolic activity as seen on positron emission tomography may be helpful to find an alternative biopsy site.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…