Clinical manifestations and imaging characteristics of gliomatosis cerebri with pathological confirmation.

OBJECTIVE To explore the clinical manifestations and imaging characteristics of gliomatosis cerebri to raise the awareness and improve its diagnostic accuracy for patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS Clinical data, imaging characteristics and pathological examination of 12 patients with GC from Jan., 2008 to Jan., 2012 were analyzed retrospectively. RESULTS Patients with GC were clinically manifested with headache, vomiting, repeated seizures, fatigue and unstable walking, most of whom had more than 2 lesions involving in parietal lobe, followed by temporal lobe, frontal lobe, periventricular white matter and corpus callosum. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed diffuse distribution, T1-weighted images (T1WI) with equal and low signals and T2-weighted images (T2WI) with bilateral symmetrical high diffuse signals. There was no reinforcement by enhancement scanning and signals were different in diffusion-weighted images (DWI). The higher the tumor staging, the stronger the signals. Pathological examination showed neuroastrocytoma in which tumor tissues were manifested by infiltrative growth in blood vessels and around neurons. CONCLUSIONS In clinical diagnosis of GC, much attention should be paid to the diffuse distribution of imaging characteristics, incomplete matching between clinical and imaging characteristics and confirmation by combining with histopathological examination.