Learning objectives
1.
To recall the epidemiology and demographic characteristics of posterior fossa cystic lesions.
2.
To review MRI imaging characteristics of the most common posterior fossa cystic lesions in children.
3.
To describe the differential diagnosis of posterior fossa cystic lesions both benign and malignant based on age of onset and provoking factor.
Background
Background:
Posterior fossa cystic lesions are common findings observed in the pediatric population.
The most accurate method to evaluate posterior fossa is Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI),
where the sensitivity and specificity is far superior to those of Computed Tomography (CT) and transfontanellar ultrasound of neonates and infants.
There is a wide range of pathologies that need to be accounted in the evaluation of posterior fossa cystic lesions.
They can range from normal variants to life threating anomalies.
Material and methods:
Material of our analysis included...
Findings and procedure details
Results and discussion:
All posterior fossa cystic lesions observed in our pediatric patients can by divided into congenital and acquired abnormalities.
Congenital cystic lesions include: arachnoid cyst (16 cases),
Dandy-Walker malformation (2 cases) and Dandy Walker variants (8 cases),
mega cisterna magna (46 cases),
Blake's pouch cyst (7 cases) and Joubert syndrome (2 cases).
Acquired cystic lesions include both neoplasm associated cysts - pilocytic astrocytoma (8 cases),
medulloblastoma with cystic foci (2 cases),
as well as other,
mainly iatrogenic causes - infectious/postinfectious and postoperative changes...
Conclusion
Neuroimaging provides detailed anatomic findings and plays a key role in the diagnosis of posterior fossa abnormalities.
In the clinical practice the added value of MRI is substantial,
while other imaging techniques such as transfontanellar ultrasound or CT are inferior to MRI.
The presented overview should help in proper and easier differential diagnosis of the commonest posterior fossa cystic lesions in the pediatric group of patients.
Personal information
M.
Neska-Matuszewska,
A.
Piekarek,
M.
Sąsiadek,
A.
Zimny.
Department of General and Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology,
Wroclaw Medical University,
Borowska 213,
50-556 Wroclaw,
Poland.
tel.: 71 733 16 68,
faks: 71 733 16 89.
Malgorzata Neska-Matuszewska,
e-mail:
[email protected]
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