Meningioma and the ophthalmologist: diagnostic pitfalls

In seven patients with intracranial meningioma whose presenting signs and symptoms were ophthalmologic the underlying problem was initially misdiagnosed. Three patients had sphenoidal meningiomas with compression of the anterior visual pathways, but the initial diagnoses were acute optic neuritis, chronic optic neuritis and glaucoma. Two other patients had large frontal meningiomas causing in one case unilateral pain and swelling of the upper lid plus ptosis and hypotropia, and in the other case bilateral frontal morning headaches and intermittent blurring of vision in one eye; they were thought to have a frontal lobe osteoma and migraine respectively. A sixth patient had a large parietal meningioma causing unilateral papilledema in an eye with a corneal graft; the papilledema was not initially recognized because of severe astigmatism in that eye. The last patient had an occipital meningioma that had caused a fixed homonymous field defect and many years of "classic migraine".