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Updated: Jul 12, 2026

Endoscopic Endonasal Trans-sphenoidal Approach: Minimally Invasive Surgery for Pituitary Adenomas
Published on: January 17, 2018
Sacral ependymoma presents 20 years after initial posterior fossa lesion
Lynden Guy Nicely1, Mark Baxter2,3, Sourav Banerjee4
1Department of Cellular and Systems Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK.
Abstract:
Posterior fossa ependymomas (PFEs) are designated histologically as low-grade neoplasms. Despite being characterised as benign, cases of metastasis have been reported only a few times with the patients concurrently diagnosed with the primary tumour. Interval drop metastasis or spontaneous second distal tumours are extremely rare and, in most cases, are diagnosed within a few months of primary tumour resection. Here, we report a patient with a grade 2 paediatric PFE exhibiting a 20-year interval to a second sacral ependymoma. The patient was initially diagnosed with a PFE at the age of 10 years and underwent tumour resection and postoperative radiotherapy. In their late 20s, the patient presented with basilar artery occlusion complicated by life-threatening epistaxis. Post-thrombolysis, the patient presented with a large sacral grade 1 myxopapillary ependymoma with cauda equina syndrome-like symptoms. Here, we present a rare case of two ependymomas with a 20-year interval in the same patient with compounding comorbidities.

