What are the dangers of intracranial lipoma?

Intracranial lipoma is caused by abnormal embryonic development of central nervous tissue. It is a relatively rare intracranial tumor in clinical practice and poses a great threat to human health. So what kind of harm does intracranial lipoma have on the human body? Most people don't quite understand this. In fact, intracranial lipoma can cause many kinds of harm to the human body. The biggest harm is that it can cause epilepsy in patients.

1. Epilepsy is the most common symptom of intracranial lipoma, accounting for about 50%. It can be various types of epilepsy, but major seizures are the main ones. Epileptic seizures may be related to the colloid degeneration of the structures adjacent to the tumor, which stimulates the brain tissue or the dense fibrous tissue in the lipoma capsule to infiltrate the peripheral nerve tissue to form an excitation focus; it may also be related to corpus callosum hypoplasia or the lipoma itself.

2. Brain localization signs Intracranial lipomas rarely cause brain localization signs, but sometimes they may compress surrounding structures and cause corresponding localization signs. For example, corpus callosum lipoma compresses the hypothalamus, resulting in manifestations of diencephalic damage such as hyponatremia, obesity and reproductive incompetence; cerebellopontine angle lipoma may cause tinnitus, hearing loss, vertigo, trigeminal neuralgia, nystagmus, ataxia, etc.; sellar region lipoma may cause endocrine disorders and changes in vision and visual field, etc. Lipoma of the dorsal cervical spinal cord and medulla oblongata may manifest as numbness and weakness of the limbs, medullary paralysis, which progressively worsens with transient pain attacks in the chest, back, shoulders, neck and occipital region, urinary and bowel dysfunction, increased muscle tone in the limbs, decreased muscle strength, and positive bilateral pathological signs; lipoma of the sylvian fissure cistern or insular lobe may present with uncus attacks and limb weakness.

3. Increased intracranial pressure: Ventricular choroid plexus lipoma can block the interventricular foramen, causing obstruction of cerebrospinal fluid circulation; or quadrigeminal region lipoma can compress the cerebral aqueduct, causing obstructive hydrocephalus and increased intracranial pressure such as headache, vomiting, optic disc edema, etc.

4. Other symptoms About 20% of patients have varying degrees of mental disorders or even dementia, which may be due to the tumor involving the bilateral frontal lobes, manifested as apathy, slow reaction, loss of desire, memory loss, urinary incontinence, etc. Mental disorders in patients with corpus callosum lipoma may reach 20% to 40%, paresis in 17%, and headache in 16%.

5. For details on associated deformities, please refer to the complications section.

Complications: Intracranial lipomas are often accompanied by other malformations such as neural tube dysplasia, with corpus callosum lipoma being the most common. 48% to 50% of corpus callosum lipomas are accompanied by corpus callosum dysplasia or absence. Other common malformations include absence of septum pellucidum, spina bifida, meningocele, cranial dysplasia (frontal and parietal bone defects), and cerebellar vermis dysplasia. Rare deformities include pectus excavatum, high arched hard palate, septal defect, cleft lip, subcutaneous lipoma or fibroma, etc.