Lesions of the Petrous Apex: Classification and Findings at CT and MR Imaging

摘要: The petrous apex is a complex region of the central skull base that surrounded by number important vascular and neural structures can be home to wide range disease processes. Lesions arising in or spreading cause varied occasionally severe clinical sequelae, which typically result from mass effect direct invasion cranial nerves, brainstem, internal carotid artery. Because not amenable examination, cross-sectional imaging with computed tomography magnetic resonance (MR) plays an role diagnosis characterization lesions occurring there. Petrous classified on basis their origin into following categories: developmental lesions, inflammatory benign tumors, malignant osseous dysplasias. most common are cholesterol granulomas, reliably diagnosed MR due high signal intensity both T1-weighted images T2-weighted images. In addition, one should also familiar anatomic variants pseudolesions mistaken for pathologic conditions.