The clinical and imaging presentations of the fallopian canal meningocele
LI Honglei
LIU Congtao
LI Xiaoyu
ZHAO Hui
YU Jinfen
LI Jinyan
WANG Linsheng
Abstract：Objective To summarize the clinical and imaging presentations of the fallopian canal meningocele(FCM).Methods The clinical and imaging material of six FCM patients(seven ears)were retrospectively analyzed.Among them,two was confirmed by surgery.The enlargement and extent,the density and sinal appearances,enhancement,completeness of around bone,the relationship to labyrinth of the affected fallopian canals,the density and signal appearances of the affected middle ear cavity of the affected ears,the sella turcica and the optic sheath on high resolution CT and MRI were recorded.Results Among six FCM patients with seven affected ears,four-affected ears presented sensorineural or mixed hearing loss,in-cluding three ears for moderate,one ear for profound.Besides this,the tinitus in four cases,ear pain and facial spasm in one ear each were found.On CT,all of the labyrinthine and geniculate portions of the fallopian canals in the affected ears were depicted markedly dilatation,especially in the geniculate fossa,the enlarged geniculate fossa extended into the hypertympanum,all of the medial bony walls were shown defect,the upper wall was involved in one ear.The osseous septa between the dialated labyrin-thine portions of the facial canals and ipsilateral cochlea disappeared in three ears.On MRI,the hyposignal on T1WI and hyper-signal on T2WI or water sequence like cerebrospinal fluid(CSF)were shown in the enlargement facial canals,connecting the CSF-like signal in the internal auditory canal with dialated labyrinthine portions of the facial canal,without diffusion restriction,and non-enhancing with administration Gadolinium contrast.The internal facial nerves had the normal diameter and no abnormali-ties on enhanced scanning,and no abnormality was shown in all of the affected tympanum.Three cases were accompanied by empty sella turcica and prominent CSF signal within the optic sheath.Conclusion The ears with FCM usually present the hear-ing loss and tinnitus.The markedly enlargement of the proximal portions in the affected FCM on CT,depicting CSF-like signal,no diffusion restriction,and no enhancement administration gadolinium contrast,and no effusion in the ipsilateral tympanum are its imaging features.
Keywords：Fallopian canalMeningoceleTomographyX-ray computedMagnetic resonance imaging
Publication Date：2025-06-30
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：4( 34-37 )