A carcinoid tumor mimicking an isolated intracranial meningioma. Case report

This 79-year-old woman presented with progressively worsening dementia, abulia, flat affect, urinary incontinence, and profuse watery diarrhea. Results of computerized tomography and magnetic resonance studies indicated an extraaxial, dural-based mass compressing the right frontal lobe and consistent with a convexity meningioma. A right frontal craniotomy was performed and the dural-based mass was resected. Histopathological features on immunostaining of the lesion were consistent with a carcinoid tumor (low-grade neuroendocrine carcinoma). Further evaluation revealed no primary carcinoid tumor in the foregut from which they typically originate. The authors concluded that this intracranial carcinoid tumor was the primary lesion despite its unusual location and that it should be included in the differential diagnosis of dural-based, extraaxial brain lesions.