Pregnant patients with severe headaches – don’t forget brain tumours!
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7196/Keywords:
Pregnancy, Meningioma, headaches, blindness, seizuresAbstract
Although sometimes innocuous, headaches in pregnancy may be associated with serious, even life-threatening conditions, with diagnosis delayed due to nonspecific findings associated with normal pregnancy. Meningiomas are the most common primary tumours, have a strong female predisposition and are mostly benign. There is a paucity of information on the diagnosis and management of meningiomas during and after pregnancy. In this article, we describe two cases of meningioma with differing management, seen within a period of 6 months. In case one, iatrogenic preterm delivery of the baby at 33 weeks’ gestation was executed to facilitate vision-saving neurosurgery. In our second case, delivery was at early term, with time allowed for postpartum re-evaluation before definitive neurosurgery.
References
1. Lusis EA, Scheithauer BW, Yachnis AT, et al. Meningiomas in pregnancy: A clinicopathologic study of 17 cases. Neurosurgery 2012;71(5):951-961. https://doi.org/10.1227/NEU.0b013e31826adf65
2. Ogasawara C, Philbrick BD, Adamson DC. Meningioma: A review of epidemiology, pathology, diagnosis, treatment, and future directions. Biomedicines 2021;9(3):319. https://doi.org/10.3390/ biomedicines9030319
3. Mallari RJ, Thakur JD, Griffiths C, et al. Tuberculum sellae meningiomas in pregnancy: 3 cases treated in the second trimester and literature review. World Neurosurg 2020;143:268-275. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.wneu.2020.07.198
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Copyright (c) 2025 T Hassim, D Hall, P Mjuleka
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