Tumors of the cranial vault

Various lesions can affect the vault of the skull usually asymptomatic and of incidental discovery but can also present as a swelling with or without local pain. We report a retrospective study of 20 cases collected in the neurosurgery department at HMPIT over a 17-year period from January 1 2000 to December 31 2016.The mean age was 47.7 years with extremes ranging from 20 to 75 years with a slight male predominance and a sex ratio of 1.2.An incidental finding of an arch lesion was found in 3 cases.Frontal location was the most common accounting for 45% of cases followed by parietal location (35%).Histological examination of the surgical specimen was carried out in all our patients confirming our suspicion of a diagnosis.Secondary localization was common in 9 cases with breast cancer in 2 and thyroid cancer in 2.Most of these patients reported clinical improvement following surgery or radiotherapy and the prognosis for tumors of the vault will depend on the etiology.