A Missed Diagnosis of Cerebellar Astrocytoma During Pregnancy
[1]
Elmas Shaqiri, Institute of Legal Medicine, Tirana, Albania.
[2]
Bledar Xhemali, Institute of Legal Medicine, Tirana, Albania.
[3]
Fatos Harito, Faculty of Medicine, University of Medicine in Tirana, Tirana, Albania.
[4]
Gentian Vyshka, Faculty of Medicine, University of Medicine in Tirana, Tirana, Albania.
Sudden death due to intracranial tumours is an extreme rarity; nevertheless casuistics is offering continuously cases for consideration. It might overcome within a previously known neoplastic disorder, but it might even be the ever first clinical occurrence, with fatal outcome. Authors present the case of a pregnant woman emergently hospitalized during the 22nd week of her second pregnancy. Symptoms of headache, vomiting and gait instability were misinterpreted as complications of pregnancy. The patient fell in coma few hours after admission and was pronounced dead the next morning. A forensic autopsy revealed the presence of a fibrillary astrocytoma of the left cerebellar hemisphere, leading to diffuse brain swelling and incarceration of nervous structures in the foramen magnum. The necessity of specialized and multi-disciplinary approach and the availability of radiological techniques of brain imaging are formulated, in order to avoid the occurrence of sudden death due to undiagnosed brain tumours, whose incidence is globally decreasing.
Pregnancy, Intracranial Tumours, Hyperemesis Gravidarum, Sudden Death, Astrocytoma
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