ELASTIC TISSUE IN MENINGEAL FIBROBLASTOMAS SO-CALLED "DURAL ENDOTHELIOMAS"

Abstract

It was my good fortune to find in Professor Spielmeyer's collection of tumors of the brain a benign meningeal tumor—meningeal fibroblastoma—or as it is more widely known, a "dural endothelioma" which seems to offer well nigh conclusive evidence of the ability of the type cell of this tumor to form elastic tissue. This is of interest since it adds still another bit of evidence, though indirect, of the potential fibroblastic nature of the cells of this tumor. Fibroglia fibrils, collagen fibrils and elastic fibers are the well known products of cells potentially fibroblastic. As Mallory has pointed out, elastic tissue may and often does grow out from the dura into these tumors where it is being invaded. It may likewise arise within the tumor from the stroma or the blood vessels. In this particularly favorable specimen the elastic tissue did not seem to arise from either of these sources. The