Arachnoid Cyst: A Solitary Intracranial Cyst in the Occipital Lobe of the Cerebrum in a Cadaver

Abstract

Cyst is a closed sac, having distinct envelop; they may be filled with air, fluid, semi-solid material etc. Often cyst is a self-limiting and uneventful condition; they may get resolve with some time duration. If they fail to self-limit by themselves, depending on its size and location it needs timely surgical intervention. A cerebral cyst is a lesion with fluid filled sac in the brain. It may be benign, or malignant. This may be filled with blood, pus, Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF), etc. Intracranial arachnoid cysts are congenital lesions of an arachnoid membrane which accounts for 1% of cases of intracranial space occupying lesions. Clinically, a brain cyst may remain silent, often it is an accidental finding on radiological investigations which are correlated in the patients with a history of vague neurological complaints. Often, headaches are a chronic complaint presented with underlying causative factors ranging from psychological stress to severe neurological deficits. The primary brain cyst that exists congenitally by birth will have no definite causality; a secondary brain cyst may exist with diversified aetiological factors including trauma. Elucidation of chronic symptoms dominated with migraine-like headache is very much essential; despite showing a good relief with a palliative treatment it will warrant clinicians to rule out cerebral cystic lesions. Such accidental findings during the dissections set as a natural cadaveric illustration, which build curiosity, and motivation among preclinical student learning from the point of integration of basic subjects. One such case of the cerebral cyst was found during the dissection in the Department of Anatomy, JSS Medical College, Mysuru, Karnataka, India. The present case is of a 70-year-old male cadaver diagnosed with the arachnoid cerebral cyst along with other varieties of cystic brain swellings.

Keywords

• cerebral cyst
• migraine
• psychology