S Y N 0 P S I S Patients suffering from severe migraine, usually for many years, have been examined by the EMI scanner between attacks. Judged by criteria validated originally by comparison with pneumoencephalography, about half of the patients showed evidence of cerebral atrophy. Perhaps of more significance than generalised atrophy was the frequency of areas of focal atrophy and of evidence of infarction.Although migraine is a common disease afflicting between 5% and 10% of the population (Friedman, 1971), little is known about either the underlying pathological changes which are present during an attack or the structural changes, if any, which may occur in the brain after one or many episodes. This difficulty in obtaining information arises from the fact that migraine is rarely a fatal illness, and such information as we have is derived from studies of those vessels which are visible in the retina, from the very small number of postmortem studies which have been reported in patients dying from migraine and its complications, and from a few angiographic and cerebral blood flow studies.Computerised axial tomography (CAT) (EMI scanning) offers a new opportunity for the visualisation of pathological changes in the brain occurring in the course of non-fatal illness.Symonds (1951) suggested that slight, but cumulative structural damage may result from repeated attacks of migraine. We have therefore analysed the results of CAT in a group of patients suffering from severe migraine in an attempt to determine whether structural damage does occur.

Computed tomography measurements of the AP diameter, width, and cross-sectional area of the bony cervical canal were derived from cervical spine examinations of fifty-two normal adults. These quantitative parameters were then used to evaluate 80 patients with various cervical abnormalities to determine the clinical usefulness of the measurements. With the exception of spinal stenosis, quantitative cervical canal analysis was found to be of limited usefulness since normal measurements frequently occurred in the presence of significant cervical pathology.

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✓ Symptomatic subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) in a young patient originated in a non-obstructive lateral ventricular subependymoma. A brief review of brain tumors known to cause SAH is discussed. The computerized tomography scans are presented.