A 26-year-old woman with obstructive hydrocephalus caused by a cysticercal cyst blocking the left foramen of Monro was initially treated with an external ventriculostomy and subsequent endoscopically assisted cyst resection and septostomy. Postoperatively, the patient developed the clinical syndrome of akinetic mutism, but her condition improved after the administration of the dopaminergic agonist bromocriptine. This result indicates that a disruption in the ascending dopaminergic pathway involved in behavior formation was likely the cause of these neurological symptoms.

No abstract

The authors evaluate the feasibility of performing endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) in a series of five patients with ventricular outlet obstruction and a prior history of fourth ventricular cysticercosis. All patients underwent fourth ventricular cyst excision and presented at various times afterwards with hydrocephalus. They were all successfully managed with ETV, and no patient has required subsequent surgery during a mean follow-up period of 21 months (range 12-36 months).

The improved CT technology currently available can be used to identify and follow tumor burden in a rat model of gliosarcoma, and be a good tool to utilize in determining treatment outcomes experimentally, especially when MR imaging is not available.