Foster Kennedy syndrome and an optociliary vein in a patient with a falx meningioma.

We describe a 51-year-old woman with a falx meningioma causing Foster Kennedy syndrome accompanied by optociliary shunt vessels on the atrophic optic nerve. The tumor did not directly involve optic nerves or chiasm. The optociliary vessels disappeared after successful tumor removal. The patient's arteriograms, surgical findings, and postoperative course support the theory that optic atrophy in Foster Kennedy syndrome may be caused by compression of the optic nerve by adjacent brain tissue displaced by a distant intracranial mass lesion.