Clinical Outcome of Operated Intracranial Meningiomas: An Ethiopian Experience.

BACKGROUND

Intracranial meningioma is the most common brain tumor operated in the 2 teaching hospitals in Ethiopia. This study reviews the clinical outcome of intracranial meningiomas in a resource-limited setup.

METHODS

This is a retrospective study undertaken at 2 neurosurgical teaching hospitals: Black Lion Specialized Hospital and Myungsung Christian Medical Center. It includes all operated patients with intracranial meningioma during the time period January 2009 to December 2013. Patient data regarding sociodemographics, presenting complaint, focal neurologic deficit, preoperative imaging, postoperative neurologic findings, intraoperative findings, and histopathologic results were collected and analyzed.

RESULTS

A total of 91 patients were enrolled in the study. Tumor size was estimated in 79 cases (86.8%). Fifty-one tumors (64.6%) were >5 cm in diameter, whereas 28 (35.4%) were ≤5 cm. Only 4 patients had tumors <3 cm (5.1%). Tumor size was shown to be related to postoperative functional outcome (P = 0.032). The surgical mortality rate, which was defined as death within 1 month, was 14.3%. Among 88 patients with a postoperative Karnofsky Performance Status Scale score, 43% achieved a postoperative score ≥70.

CONCLUSIONS

Meningioma size determines the outcome of the patients. It was shown that the functional outcome of patients is encouraging even though further improvement on neurosurgical care is needed.