Published online May 16, 2018. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v6.i5.88
Peer-review started: January 15, 2018
First decision: February 28, 2018
Revised: March 4, 2018
Accepted: April 1, 2018
Article in press: April 1, 2018
Published online: May 16, 2018
Plexiform schwannoma is an extremely rare variant of schwannoma, accounting for approximately 5% of cases. Due to the rarity and lack of typical symptoms, signs and radiological images, a definite diagnosis of plexiform schwannoma may not be made by clinicians prior to biopsy. In the present study, we report the first case (to our knowledge) of perianal plexiform schwannoma arising from the overlapped skin of the ischioanal fossa, and we propose an intratumorally nonenhanced circumferential capsule dividing the tumour into multiple homogeneously enhanced nodules as a magnetic resonance imaging feature to aid in the differential diagnosis of plexiform schwannoma from ancient schwannoma, cavernous haemangioma, liposarcoma and plexiform neurofibroma.
Core tip: Plexiform schwannoma is an extremely rare variant of schwannoma, without typical symptoms, signs and radiological images. Hence, a definite diagnosis of plexiform schwannoma may not be made by clinicians prior to biopsy. In this work, to our knowledge, we report the first case of perianal plexiform schwannoma arising from the overlapped skin of ischioanal fossa, and we propose an intratumorally nonenhanced circumferential capsule dividing the tumour into multiple homogeneously enhanced nodules as an magnetic resonance imaging feature to aid in the differential diagnosis of plexiform schwannoma from common nodular lesions, such as ancient schwannoma, cavernous haemangioma, liposarcoma and plexiform neurofibroma.