[Tumors of nerve sheaths of the peripheral nerves]

Objectives of this paper are the analysis of the confidence in the complementary investigation for the differential diagnostic between schwannoma and neurofibroma, and the retrospective evaluation of the therapy based on the consequent follow-up. The study has been conducted on 36 patients, most of them observed by University Clinic of Navarra (Pamplona), and the others by N. Picardi, all with preoperative diagnosis of schwannoma and neurofibroma, localized in 13 cases in peripheral nerves. Diagnostic iter, pathologic definition, therapy and evolution has been evaluated for all of them. In conclusion we feel that this pathology has to be suspected every time we find a tumor with neurologic symptomatology and that surgical indication of exeresis is the most correct in the majority of cases; moreover imaging investigations is rather useful, but if any doubt occurs we must proceed to biopsy or directly to exeresis of the tumor. Our experience shows that schwannoma, thanks to its anatomic patterns, can be treated less radically toward the nerve continuity than neurofibroma, and that the technique of nerve graft could be a useful alternative in this kind of surgery.