Meningiomas of the Brain

The meningiomas, or dural endotheliomas, as they used to be called, represent one of the benign, and therefore hopeful, types of tumor of the brain. They are encapsulated growths, attached to some portion of the dura, falx or tentorium, and assume shapes varying from a smoothly elliptic to a highly irregular and nodular form, or even a flat plaque of tissue which is only a few millimeters in thickness. The term "meningioma" was introduced by Cushing1in 1922, and no better description of the type of growth indicated can be given than that used by him at the time. This word [meningioma], consequently, will be used to indicate the entire group of tumors which appear to arise from the pachymeninx; whether the overlying bone shows hyperostosis or is unchanged; whether the growth is pedunculated or flat and widespread, and regardless of the degenerative changes and the presence or otherwise