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“Benign” metastatic meningioma: clinico-pathological analysis of one case metastasising to the lung and overview on the concepts of either primitive or metastatic meningiomas of the lung

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Abstract

Lung “metastases” of benign meningiomas are rarely described events of biological and clinical interest. We, here, report of a 70-year-old healthy woman found by CT scan to have multiple lesions, the two largest in the right lung on routine examination. Anamnesis revealed that the patient underwent a surgical resection of cerebral meningioma 12 years before. The larger lung lesion was a 3-cm node located in the right lung and was removed by wedge resection. Macroscopically, it showed well-defined borders, whitish colour and firm consistency; histologically, it was uniformly composed by spindle meningothelial cells arranged in fascicules including psammoma bodies. The morphological and immunohistochemical features of this lesion, together with the similarity with the original cerebral tumour and its indolent evolution, led to a final diagnosis of “benign” meningioma metastatic to the lung. Lung metastatic meningiomas may be a diagnostic challenge because of their unusual site of presentation and the possible confusion with primitive lung meningiomas or primary mesenchymal lung lesions. They represent a typical example of “benign” tumours that may implant to the lung similar to other tumours, definitely considered benign but reported to rarely present unusual secondary localization.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by grants from AIRC (Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro), MIUR and Compagnia di San Paolo “Special Project Oncology”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Sciences and Human Oncology Molinette Hospital, University of Turin, Via Santena 7, 10100, Turin, Italy

    Sofia Asioli, Rebecca Senetta, Elena Maldi, Maria Antonietta Satolli, Gianni Bussolati & Paola Cassoni

  2. Department of Pathology, Vito Fazzi Hospital, Lecce, Italy

    Enrico D’Ambrosio

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  1. Sofia Asioli
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  2. Rebecca Senetta
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  3. Elena Maldi
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  4. Enrico D’Ambrosio
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  5. Maria Antonietta Satolli
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  6. Gianni Bussolati
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  7. Paola Cassoni
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Correspondence to Sofia Asioli.

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Asioli, S., Senetta, R., Maldi, E. et al. “Benign” metastatic meningioma: clinico-pathological analysis of one case metastasising to the lung and overview on the concepts of either primitive or metastatic meningiomas of the lung. Virchows Arch 450, 591–594 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-007-0392-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-007-0392-9

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