Extracranial meningioma: a rare differential diagnosis of an intranasal tumor

Meningiomas are common intracranial neoplasms, making up 19.5 per cent of all intracranial tumours. Meningiomas occurring outside the central nervous system are uncommon. In this report should be presented an extradural meningioma of the left nasal cavity, which was diagnosticated in an 78-year-old female. These slowly growing non-infiltrating tumours have no characteristical clinical symptoms, they cause nasal obstruction and sinusitis. The origin of these tumours is uncertain. Obviously intranasal meningiomas take their origin from the arachnoideal meningocytes which accompany the olfactory filaments through the lamina cribrosa to the extradural site.