Prenatal diagnosis of fetal intracranial medulloepithelioma: a case report

Zhuo Meng; Lin Chen; Fangfang Chen; Shixin Fu; Hongkui Yu; Xiaoyan Chen

doi:10.3389/fneur.2023.1295408

Prenatal diagnosis of fetal intracranial medulloepithelioma: a case report

Front Neurol. 2024 Jan 24:14:1295408. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2023.1295408. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Zhuo Meng^#¹, Lin Chen^#^{2

3}, Fangfang Chen⁴, Shixin Fu⁵, Hongkui Yu¹, Xiaoyan Chen³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Ultrasound, Shenzhen Baoan Women's and Children's Hospital, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
² Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
³ Maternal-Fetal Medicine Institute, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Shenzhen Baoan Women's and Children's Hospital, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
⁴ Department of Pathology, Shenzhen Baoan Women's and Children's Hospital, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
⁵ Department of Radiology, Shenzhen Baoan Women's and Children's Hospital, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Intracranial medulloepithelioma is a very rare and highly malignant tumor that is typically diagnosed in childhood and has an inferior prognosis. In the current report, we described a case of fetal intracranial medulloepithelioma that was detected during the third trimester by prenatal ultrasonography, which displayed homogenous echogenicity with well-circumscribed margins and abundant blood flow. On magnetic resonance imaging, it was hyperintense on both T1- and T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. The fetal intracranial tumor was progressive, with rapid expansion within 3 weeks. The report aimed to provide knowledge on the clinical characteristics of fetal intracranial medulloepithelioma in prenatal diagnosis, particularly the radiological features.

Keywords: congenital brain tumor; fetal ultrasonography; medulloepithelioma; prenatal diagnosis; radiological features.

Publication types

Case Reports

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was funded by the Shenzhen Key Medical Discipline Construction Fund (Grant no. SZXK028), the Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (Grant nos. JCYJ20210324141403009 and RCYX20210609104608036), and the Natural Science Funding of China (Grant no. 82201851).