Is MRI as sensitive as cerebrospinal-fluid cytology for the diagnosis of neoplastic meningitis?

Background: Although CSF cytology and MRI are standard methods for the diagnosis of neoplastic meningitis (NM), this complication of malignancies still remains to be difficult to detect in some cases. We therefore re-evaluated the sensitivity of gadolinium(GD)-enhanced MRI and cerebrospinal-fluid (CSF)-cytology for the diagnosis of LM differenzially for solid and haematological malignancies and for normal or elevated cell counts. Methods: We identified retrospectively 101 cases of NM diagnosed in our CSF laboratory since 1990 with complete data of both MRI and CSF-cytology. 34 had haematological, 67 solid neopla…