A 26-year-old man was admitted for recurrent headaches, loss of vision in his left eye, and elevated blood pressure. His loss of sight had been gradual, manifesting for over six months before hospitalization. He also exhibited episodes of inadequate behavior with some aggression. The patient was conscious at admission, and no other meningeal or focal neurological symptoms were found. The patient consented to publication of his protected health information.\nHis right and left eyes had logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution visual acuities of 1.0 and 0.2, respectively. T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a hyperintense signal mass lesion occupying his chiasm and left ON (Figure ). These findings led to a diagnosis of high-grade glioma of the chiasm and left ON, or CM.\nSurgery was performed with the patient in the supine position, with his head slightly elevated and turned to the right side about 30 degrees. A left frontolateral craniotomy was performed to optimize the approach to the chiasm and left ON. Fenestration of the basal cistern and aspiration of cerebrospinal fluid yielded a relaxed brain with satisfactory gravity retraction. The left optic canal was unroofed, and several blood clots at different stages of resorption were evacuated through the longitudinal dissection of the ON. Minimal coagulation currents were applied to occlude the feeding vessels with their sharp sections. Resection was estimated to be gross total (Video ).\nThere were no surgical complications, and MRI performed six months later showed no signs of CM recurrence (Figure ). The patient was discharged after seven days, and his vision returned to normal three months later. He is still in touch with us and has reported no signs of visual deterioration or recurrent bleeding.\nThe microscopic structure of the resected CM with heterochromous thromboses is shown in Figure .
A 17-year-old boy complained of a 2-month history of visual field defects. Two months prior to this, he experienced sudden deterioration of visual acuity on his left eye and visual field defects on the right. His symptoms remained unchanged for the next 2 months. Upon admission, his visual acuity was 0.05 in the left eye and 0.7 in the right eye. Goldmann perimetry field test showed right homonymous hemianopsia without left eye foveal sparing. Brain MR imaging showed a poorly enhanced lesion 1.9 × 1.7 × 2.1 cm in size in the posteroinferior aspect of the optic chiasm (). The mass extended to the perimesencephalic cistern with multiple stages of hemorrhage. A differential diagnosis included CM, craniopharyngioma and germ cell tumor. To decompress the mass effect around the optic chiasm and improve the patient's visual symptoms, surgical decompression via subfrontal interhemispheric approach was performed. A brownish discoloration was noted around the left side of optic chiasm and tract. A dark chocolate-colored hematoma gushed out, and a mulberry-like lesion was removed. The pathological diagnosis was consistent with the CM. The postoperative MR imaging showed partial resection of CM (). At the patient's 1-year follow-up, his visual acuity improved (1.0/0.4), although visual field defect remained unchanged. However, 2 years after the first operation, the patient complained of worsening visual acuity (0.3/finger count 10 cm). Visual field examination showed impairments in which the left eye only detected the right lower quadrant in the visual field and the right eye had nasal hemianopsia. MR imaging revealed recurrent bleeding (). The patient underwent a second operation resulting in a partial resection. Immediately following the second operation, his visual acuity (0.4/finger count 10 cm) and field improved slightly.