Clinical and radiological aspects of cerebellopontine neurinoma presenting with recurrent spontaneous bleedings

BACKGROUND: Neurinomas are benign, usually encapsulated, tumors growing in peripheral nerve sheath with a high incidence in the cerebellopontine angle. CASE DESCRIPTION: We report a case of vestibular neurinoma (VN) with a “biphasic” pattern of intratumoral hemorrhage presenting with cephalalgia along with progressive ipsilateral mild impairment of both VII and VIII cranial nerves. A thorough preoperative magnetic resonance imaging study better characterized the patchy pattern of the round shaped lesion, resulting in three different intensity signals, due to the peculiar characteristics of the tumoral mass and the recurrent bleedings, respectively. Postoperatively, histological examination confirmed the diagnosis of neurinoma. CONCLUSION: Hemorrhagic VN are rare tumors; from the first case described in 1974 only 43 more have been reported in the literature so far. Noteworthy, “biphasic” bleedings are even rarer. From an accurate review of the literature we collected and thus emphasized the radiological and clinical features of this rare entity. Eventually, we suggest that the early surgical removal of clots and tumor is essential to provide the best chance of neurological improvement.