Unusual Clinical Presentation of a Presumed Pineal Germinoma with Two Disseminated Lesions

Abstract

ABSTRACT We report a case of a presumed pineal germinoma in a 28-year-old man. Although the pineal body, the presumed primary lesion, was small, there were two disseminated tumors, one in the posterior fossa and the other in the left parietal region. The initial symptom was cerebellar ataxia. These two disseminated tumors had attachments to the inferior surface of the cerebellar tentorium and the dura mater of the parietal convexity, respectively, and they were fed by external carotid artery branches, like meningiomas. Neither angiography nor magnetic resonance imaging could provide the differential diagnosis between germinoma and meningioma. Computed tomographic scanning revealed slight enlargement of the pineal body suggestive of a germinoma.