Lumbo-Peritoneal Shunt: Review of a Series

ABSTRACT

The author reviewed a series of 48patients who underwent lumbo-peritoneal shunt operation at Taegu Catholic University Hospital during recent five years. Among them, 10 cases were excluded in this study because of their poor neurologic status which was not adequate to estimate the operative result. In our series, lumbo-peritoneal shunt was done in 34 cases of communicating hydrocephalus due to aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, head injury, spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage with/without intraventicular hemorrhage and brain tumor, 2 cases of pseudomeningocele and 2 cases of normal pressure hydrocephalus. The results of this review demonstrate clinical improvement in 28 cases(73.7%), 10 cases(26.7%) of no clinical improvement. There were 9 complications including 8 shunt dysfunction and 1 infection. Among the 8 cases of shunt dysfunction, 5 cases showed postoperative early clinical improvement but revealed shunt dysfunction of delayed onset. In conclusion, lumbo-peritoneal shunt was considered as a good initial CSF diversion procedure in the treatment of communicating hydrocephalus and pseudomeningocele.