Outcome of intracranial meningioma in adults. Retrospective study of a medicosurgical series of 161 meningiomas

: The authors report the retrospective study of a medico-surgical series of 161 patients with intracranial meningiomas, diagnosed over a period of 9 years, with a follow-up period varying from 18 months to 9 years. Out of 185 cases studied, 24 were excluded because information or perspective were inadequate. Of the 161 cases retained, 133 (82.6%) were given surgical treatment and 28 (17.4%) were given conservative treatment because the clinical state was poor or the location was deemed inoperable. The sex ratio was 3 women to 1 man. The average age was 58 years. The most frequent locations were the convexity (27.9%) and the sphenoid ridge (24.7%). Among the clinical signs, apart from the usual general seizures or pyramidal signs should be noted the importance of psychological disorders. The operative mortality rate was 14.3% with a very high peak in the sixth decade, reaching 27%, while it was only 9% in the seventh decade and 13% in those over seventy. The internal sphenoid ridge location had a mortality rate of 31.5%, which is significantly higher than for all the other locations. Quality of survival was identical for all age groups. Complications were mainly seizures, functional deficits and psychological disorders. Recurrences were relatively few (10%), but insufficient lapse of time and the presence of only one malignant meningioma explain the lowness of this figure. The use of scanner was not determinant in our series, neither on the earliness of diagnosis, nor on prognosis, comparison of figures before and since scanning showing no significant differences.