When an 84-year-old man in Ireland showed up at the doctor with complaints about being unsteady, the team found a strange reason for his new clumsiness. CT scans of the patient’s brain showed a large portion of his right frontal lobe appeared to be missing.
Because increased loss of balance and unilateral weakness presented together are often the sign of a stroke, the doctors sent the patient for a CT scan.
The result was baffling – a large black hole, nine centimetres (3.54 inches) across, where his right frontal lobe should be.
An MRI confirmed that the man’s brain matter wasn’t actually gone; rather, he had an air cavity inside his skull called a pneumatocoele.
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The MRI also revealed the presence of an osteoma, a common type of benign bone tumour, on the man’s ethmoid bone, which separates the nasal cavity from the brain.
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This eroded part of the bone, which in turn allowed air to be pushed into his skull under what the doctors called a “one-way valve effect.”
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In the end, it also turned out that the doctors’ initial concerns were spot-on – because of the pressure on his brain, the patient did also have a minor stroke.
The doctors have published their paper in the journal BMJ Case Reports.
Read full, original post: This Man Had a Chunk of His Brain Go “Missing” For a Very Strange Reason
