Abstract
Hemifacial Spasm (HS) occurs idiopathically or secondary to the lesions compressing the root exit zone of the facial nerve symptomatically. Symptomatic HS is generally due to vascular compression. We report on a 23-year-old male with right sided HS for a month. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain revealed a well-demarcated epidermoid cyst in the right cerebellopontine cistern. It was hypointense on T1-weighted imaging, hyperintense on T2-weighted imaging without contrast enhancement, hyperintense on DWI, and slightly hypointense on ADC relative to the brain. Although it caused shifting of the pons and medulla to the left side and compression of the right cerebellar peduncles and fourth ventricle, the sole symptom of the patient was HS. Clinicians are advised to request MRI/scan for brainstem lesions from the patients with HS. Epidermoid cysts in cerebellopontine cistern may present with HS as the sole symptom.
Copyright
Association for Helping Neurosurgical Sick People. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Derivative-Non Commercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit.
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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License, which permits unrestricted reproduction and distribution, for non-commercial purposes only; and use and reproduction, but not distribution, of adapted material for non-commercial purposes only, provided the original work is properly cited.
