Although, for a long time, they have been known as a kind of vascular lesion, cavernomas have mostly been incidental or causative autopsy finding or have subsequently been histologically confirmed after surgical interventions undertaken due to intracerebral and spinal spontaneous hematoma of various localization. The aim of this study was to establish on the basis of the outcome of the operative treatment, whether the surgical interventions were justified and to systematize indications for surgical treatment of the cerebral cavernoma that initially manifested by hemorrhage. The subject of the study was a group of 38 patients who had been operated at the Institute for Neurosurgery during a ten-year period, from 1990 until 2000. The study group consisted of 16 male and 22 female patients. All operated patients had cyst intraparenchymal lesions. In our group of surgically treated patients three had been treated urgently due to spontaneous intracerebral hematoma, and intraoperatively taken material after inspection of the cavum pointed to the fact that cavernoma had been the cause of hemorrhage. All the others, after postoperatively done MRI of the brain, in some even DSA, were completely evaluated, and histologically confirmed. Not one hemorrhaging cavernoma showed signs of subarachnoid hemorrhage, although 60% of operated patients had cortically localized lesion Most of the operated patients, except for the three mentioned because of urgent intervention did not give massive intraparenchymal lesion that, in the clinical picture, would lead to the change of the state of consciousness. Focal neurologic deficit was a dominant clinical presentation. On the basis of the analysis of the clinically pathologic correlations and direct and longstanding operative results of the surgical treatment of cavernoma, operative treatment is indicated in all superficial lobar lesions as well as in those that are localized in the brain chambers and pineal region regardless of the type of the clinical presentation.
Multiple Cerebral Cavernoma Associated with Biatrial Myxoma: A Case Report
