Intracranial Meningiomas : Experiences at the Mayo Clinic

Durante, professor of clinical surgery at the University of Rome, performed the first successful operation for an intracranial tumor when he removed a pre dominantly unilateral meningioma of the left olfactory groove.This procedure followed the celebrated Bennett-Godlee case, which resulted in a fatality, by only 6 months.'If we were to designate an intracranial neoplasm that has had the most effect on the development of neurologic surgery, very likely the intracranial meningioma would be pro minently considered.' Harvey Cushing3) suggested the term "meningioma" when he delivered the Cavendish Lecture in 1922.He was the first to use electrocautery in intracranial surgery to remove a meningioma of the olfactory groove in 1927.4Mayo Clinic Series of Patients From 1914 through 1975, 2,147 patients with intracranial meningiomas were seen at the Mayo Clinic (Table 1).Of this group, 1,923 patients underwent operative intervention; the remaining 224 intracranial lesions were iden tified at postmortem examination.From 1960 through 1975, 749 patients who had meningiomas were seen at the Mayo Clinic (Table 2).In 10 of these patients, the brain tumor was discovered at postmortem examination.The remaining 739 patients under went 790 craniotomies for their initial and recurrent tumors during this 16-year period.At the Mayo Clinic, approximately 50 cranio tomies are done annually for these challenging neoplasms.