PRIMARY MELANOTIC TUMORS OF THE MENINGES: RESEMBLANCE TO MENINGIOMAS

Abstract

Primary melanotic tumors of the central nervous system are rare, and reports of no more than 30 cases have appeared in the literature. Even some of these are open to question because of the possibility that the tumors were secondary to some unrecognized origin elsewhere in the body. However, there appears to be substantial reason to assume that these tumors can arise in the meninges of the brain and cord. The great majority of cases reported have tended to conform, more or less, in that the tumors originated in the leptomeninges, invaded the adjacent neural parenchyma and spread along the subarachnoid spaces after the fashion of meningitis, ending in death in less than two years after the onset of symptoms. We have encountered at the New York Hospital 2 cases of primary melanotic tumor of the meninges—1 of spinal and 1 of cranial tumor. The growths were decidedly unlike those