Peritumoral brain edema (PTBE) in meningiomas had been a subject of interest; its occurrence in an extraaxial tumor was the reason of many studies and published data. Objective: The goal of this study was to evaluate and to determine the exact implication of Peritumoral brain edema in meningiomas in intraoperative and short postoperative prognosis. Subjects and Methods: During 2006 to 2011, 45 patients with supratentorial meningiomas were studied. Intraoperatively certain findings were reported including: easy or difficult resection, simpson’s grade of removal, brain tumor interface, plane of cleavage, pial vascularization of the tumor and arachnoid disruption. Morbidity and mortality were recorded; also postoperative CT and/or MRI were obtained within the first 3 months. Results: There were 26 meningiomas (57.7%) with peritumoral edema and 19 meningiomas without (42.3%). Pial vascularization of the tumor was defined in 24 patients (53.3%), 4 patients (21%) had a pial blood supply in edema negative group compared to 20 patients (76.9%) in edema positive group. In this study, there was 1 case mortality (2.2%) in edema positive group. As regard morbidity, 8 (30.6%) patients in edema positive group suffered an early postoperative morbidity this is in comparison to 4 patients (21%) in the edema negative group. Conclusion: Our study shows that PTBE in meningiomas affects the surgical prognosis and confers a higher risk of morbidity and postoperative complications. Preoperative management of PTBE and immediate post-operative monitoring are important.
Key words: Meningioma, Brain edema