Traumatic Cerebrospinal Fluid Rhinorrhea: Successful Closure under the Surgical Microscope

The authors report a case of traumatic cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea accompanied by psychotic symptoms in which intracranial approach was performed under the surgical microscope for closure of the cerebrospinal fluid fistula, and satisfactory result were obtained.

Chordoma in the Thoracic Spine: Case Report

Chordomas are congenital tumor which develop from remnant of the notochord. Most of them arise at the clivus Blumenbachii, at the junction of the sphenoidal and occipital bones or sacrococcygeal region. Rarely chordomas arise at the thoracic spine, which compress the spinal cord epidurally and sometimes invade the substance of the spinal cord. The authors report a case of chordoma at T9-T10 vertebral level in which the characteristic "physaliferous" cells were found in the slides of operative specimen. The tumor was compressing the spinal cord and extending into body and lamine of the vertebra, which resulted the patient, 52 year-old Korean male, in paraplegia.

Experimental Studies in Cereral Edema: Part II

The experiments were carried out on 48 rabbits weighing between 1.7 and 2kg. The occurrence and changes of experimental brain edema have been studied by calculating wet weight, volume, dry weight, and percentage of both water content and swelling in the rabbits. The brain edema and swelling were produced by expansion of laminaria which was expanded gradually in the supratentorial extradural space of rabbit, and also, the brain edema with swelling were induced by intravenous injection of distilled water and pitressin. The effect of mannitol and steroid to these experimental brain edema with swelling and, especially, the effect and reaction of ethyl alcohol and diphenyl hydantoin on brain edema in distilled-water and pitressin groups were studied and the results obtained are as follows: The weight, volume, and percentages of water content and swelling in the compressed sides of hemisphere showed higher values compared them to the opposite noncompressed hemisphere in the "laminaria-compression" group and showed gradually increasing tendency as the time elapsed. The effect of mannitolization to "laminaria-compression" group showed anti-brain edema reaction while there showed no such effect after steroid injection. The acute brain edema with swelling was demonstrated in pitressin and distilled-water group by showing increased percentages of water and swelling than those of control group. Although the intravenous dilantin injection to these experimental groups showed no appreciable effect on anti-brain edema reaction and effect.