A 38-year-old man with long-standing well-controlled epilepsy undergoes CT head during evaluation of headaches. It shows a sharply defined, lobulated calcified mass in the left frontal cortex with minimal surrounding oedema. On MRI the lesion involves both cortex and subcortical white matter. The most likely diagnosis is:

• A Central neurocytoma
• B Meningioma
• C Ganglioglioma
• D Oligodendroglioma ✓

Explanation

Oligodendroglioma classically presents in young adults with seizures, sits in the frontal cortex with involvement of subcortical white matter, and shows coarse, nodular or gyriform calcification on CT in up to 70 percent of cases. Ganglioglioma favours the temporal lobe and is usually a cyst with a mural nodule rather than a densely calcified cortical mass, which makes it the strongest distractor to exclude here.

Reference: Osborn's Brain: Imaging, Pathology, and Anatomy, 2nd ed.

High-yield for: NEET PGINI-CETNExTFMGEUSMLEPLABMRCP

Written and medically reviewed by the StethoPrep medical team.