ARTICLE REVIEW 5

Author of Article

Kunwarpal Singh, Mohit Preet Singh, CL. Thukral,  Kiran Rao, Kulvinder Singh, and Amandeep Singh

Article Title

Role of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Evaluation
of Cerebellopontine Angle Schwannomas

Journal Name

Indian Journal of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgey

1) Bibliography

Singh, K., Singh, M. P., Thukral, C., Rao, K., Singh, K., & Singh, A. (2014). Role of magnetic resonance imaging in evaluation of cerebellopontine angle schwannomas. Indian journal of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery : official publication of the Association of Otolaryngologists of India, 67(1), 21-7.

2) Purpose of the Article

The main purpose of this study is to present the role of MRI  scan in detection of Cerebellopontine Angle Schwannomas and it's abality to localize and characterize the lesionns which were used to compare with histopathological and surgical findings.

3) Brief description of Procedure and Findings/Result

Vestibular Schwannomas is the commonest tumor in cerebellopontine angle that arises from the Schwann cells. Basically, the researchers were prospectively selected 19 patients (9males and 10 female) with positive sign and symptom or has history of recurrent lesions in cerebellopontine angle. The subjects are between 21years old and 40years old within a period of a year and half which start from January 2011. The specification of the MRI machine that readily available in Sri Guru Ram Das Charitable Hospital, Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Sri Amritsar which are 1.5 Tesla Philips Gyroscan Achieva units, while the basic sequence including the FLAIR, T1-weighted pre and post contrast, T2-weighted, photon density in coronal and sagital plane were made for each cases. All the cases are reviewed and analysed based on basic imaging key features of the cerebellopontine lesions.

Based on the results collected, 84.2% of patients did have hearing loss as the chief complaints. The researches all agree that the MRI scan is the most compatible modality in diagnosing the cerebellopontine angle schwannomas with the sensitivity of –post-contrast enhancement that reached 100% detection specifically for a smaller voxel size of tumor. In this study, all cases of vestibular were moderately enhanced with a consistent homogeneity. In terms of specificity accuracy was 92.86 % with a positive predictive value of 94.12 % and accuracy of 96.67 %.

In contrast, the authors were also found difficulties in differentiating vestibular schwannomas and meningioma. However, with a full insight for entire encountering intracanalicular, 2 cases are identified as meningioma based on appearance in MRI image and histopathology findings. 

4) Conclusion and Comment

In other words, MRI is becomes as an excellent non-invasive imaging modalities for detection and stratifying the treatment  for CP angle schwannoma’s such as vestibular schwannoma and meningioma. The signal intensity in MRI imaging are able to  enhance the lesions, also show the extent, margins, mass effect and much more that used for diagnosis making. 

5) Opinion

This paper is direct and simple, very understandable interpretation and explaination. But the authors made a light arrangement of the layout for the writing and the figures.