Journal of neurosurgery
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Journal of neurosurgery · Jan 2012
Stereotactic radiosurgery for arteriovenous malformations, Part 5: management of brainstem arteriovenous malformations.
In this paper, the authors' goal was to define the long-term outcomes and risks of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) for arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) of the medulla, pons, and midbrain. ⋯ Although hemorrhage after obliteration did not occur in this series, patients remained at risk during the latency interval until obliteration occurred. Thirty-eight percent of the patients who had neurological deficits due to prior hemorrhage improved. Higher dose delivery in association with conformal and highly selective SRS is required for safe and effective radiosurgery.
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Journal of neurosurgery · Jan 2012
Evaluation of intraventricular hemorrhage assessment methods for predicting outcome following intracerebral hemorrhage.
Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) associated with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is an independent predictor of poor outcome. Clinical methods for evaluating IVH, however, are not well established. This study sought to determine the best IVH grading scale by evaluating the predictive accuracies of IVH, Graeb, and LeRoux scores in an independent cohort of ICH patients with IVH. Subacute IVH dynamics as well as the impact of external ventricular drain (EVD) placement on IVH and outcome were also investigated. ⋯ The IVH, Graeb, and LeRoux scores predict outcome well with similarly good accuracy in ICH patients with IVH when assessed at admission and within 6 days after hemorrhage. Therefore, any of one of the scores would be equally useful for assessing IVH severity and risk-stratifying ICH patients with regard to outcome. These results suggest that EVD placement may be beneficial for patients with severe IVH, who have particularly poor prognosis at admission, but a randomized clinical trial is needed to conclusively demonstrate its therapeutic value.
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Journal of neurosurgery · Jan 2012
Outcomes of Gamma Knife surgery for trigeminal neuralgia secondary to vertebrobasilar ectasia.
Vertebrobasilar ectasia (VBE) is an unusual cause of trigeminal neuralgia (TN). The surgical options for patients with medically refractory pain include percutaneous or microsurgical rhizotomy and microvascular decompression (MVD). All such procedures can be technically challenging. This report evaluates the response to a minimally invasive procedure, Gamma Knife surgery (GKS), in patients with TN associated with severe vascular compression caused by VBE. ⋯ Pain control rates of GKS in patients with TN associated with VBE were inferior to those of patients without VBE. Multimodality surgical or medical management strategies were required in most patients with VBE.
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Journal of neurosurgery · Jan 2012
Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus for advanced Parkinson disease using general anesthesia: long-term results.
The authors analyze long-term outcome in a substantial number of patients who underwent subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery under general anesthesia. ⋯ Long-term outcomes confirm that it is both safe and effective to perform STN DBS under general anesthesia. As part of patient choice, this option should be offered to all DBS candidates with advanced Parkinson disease to enable more of these patients to undergo this beneficial surgery.
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Journal of neurosurgery · Jan 2012
Impact test comparisons of 20th and 21st century American football helmets.
Concussion is the signature American football injury of the 21st century. Modern varsity helmets, as compared with vintage leather helmets, or "leatherheads," are widely believed to universally improve protection by reducing head impact doses and head injury risk for the 3 million young football players in the US. The object of this study was to compare the head impact doses and injury risks with 11 widely used 21st century varsity helmets and 2 early 20th century leatherheads and to hypothesize what the results might mean for children wearing similar varsity helmets. ⋯ The authors do not advocate reverting to leather headgear, but they do strongly recommend, especially for young players, instituting helmet safety designs and testing standards, which encourage the minimization of linear and angular impact doses and injury risks in near- and subconcussive head impacts.