Computed Tomography in Brain Tumors

Abstract

Craniocerebral injury and brain tumor are the two most important indications for CT studies. There is unanimous agreement that computed tomography is unequalled in its diagnostic accuracy in demonstration of intracranial tumors. Our own experience is based on observations in 3,750 patients with brain tumors or cerebral metastases who were studied in the period from December 1974 to March 1980 (Table 1). Initial CT studies demonstrated the intracranial tumor or tumors in 3,589 cases (95.7%). Several CT examinations were necessary for diagnosis of a brain tumor in 112 patients (3.0%). Other diagnostic procedures or postmortem studies revealed a brain tumor which had not been demonstrated with CT studies in 49 cases (1.3%) (Table 1). In the majority of the latter, the tumor was a small lesion near the base of the skull — acoustic neurinoma less than 15 mm in diameter or meningioma, for example — and almost all of these patients were examined with the earlier EMI Mark I scanner. Some patients from the earliest part of our series had small tumors high in the parietal lobe. They were not demonstrated because studies were not performed at all levels up to and including the vertex. Histological classification of the tumor was possible in 3,604 cases; in the remaining 146 patients inoperability or other reasons prevented histological examination of tumor material.