Histologic Evidence for Arteriovenous Malformation-Like Vasculature Occurring within an Intracerebral Schwannoma: A Case Report and Review of the Literature.

BACKGROUND: The phenomenon of intracerebral schwannoma is exceedingly rare, and its etiology still a matter of debate. No documented cases of intracerebral schwannoma containing vascular elements consistent with those of an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) have been reported. We describe such a case here. CASE DESCRIPTION: A left temporal intraparenchymal lesion was discovered incidentally in a 34-year-old man after he suffered a mild trauma. The lesion was resected and found on histologic examination to be an intracerebral schwannoma with AVM-like vasculature. The patient made a full recovery after resection. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first case of an intracerebral schwannoma with AVM-like characteristics to be reported in the literature. We hypothesize that the co-occurrence of this rare pathologic entity is caused by an interrelated etiologic process, with the tumor microenvironment of the schwannoma inciting the development of the vascular malformation.