37-year-old woman with multiple intracranial masses

Extramedullary hematopoiesis (EMH), defined as the presence of hematopoiesis outside bone marrow and peripheral blood, occurs asa compensatory phenomenon in several hematologic disorders and bone marrow dysfunction. EMH predominantly affects reticuloendothelial system including the spleen, liver and lymph nodes. Here,we report a rare case of multiple intracranial meningeal EMH. A37-year-old woman was anemic with gradually worsening vision for 8 months. Multiple extra-axial masses were found on imaging and the patient underwent the biopsy for the left frontotemporal lesion.Final diagnosis was multiple intracranial meningeal EMH. Treatment of fractionated external beam radiotherapy resulted in marked symptomatic improvement. This case indicates that although the diagnosis of meningeal EMH is difficult, there is a need to consider EMHin the differential diagnosis of anemic patients with tumor-like mass lesions in extramedullary sites.