[An unusual cranial vault tumor: the chondromyxoid fibroma].

Chondromyxoid fibroma is an uncommon benign bone tumor of cartilaginous origin. It is often located in long bone metaphysis. We report a case involving the left frontotemporal cranial vault in a 44-year-old woman.

The French mobile neurosurgical unit.

The authors present the French concept of a mobile neurosurgical unit (MNSU) as used to provide specific support to remote military medicosurgical units deployed in Africa, South America, Central Europe, and Afghanistan. From 2001 to 2009, 15 missions were performed, for 16 patients. All but 3 of these missions (those in Kosovo, French Guyana, and Afghanistan) concerned Africa.

[Intramedullary tuberculoma of the conus: a case report].

Tuberculomas of the spinal cord are rare. The objective of this study was to illustrate the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculomas of the conus medullaris. They must be suspected in patients with a clinical context and a typical spinal cord mass lesion.

[Surgical management of synovial cyst of the lumbar spine: retrospective study of 52 patients].

Purpose Of The Study: Lumbar synovial cysts are an uncommon cause of radiculopathy, low back pain and neurogenic claudication. We report a retrospective analysis of the clinical presentation, radiological studies, operative findings and outcome in 52 patients surgically treated for symptomatic lumbar synovial cysts.

Material And Methods: Retrospective data from 52 consecutive patients treated from January 1996 to February 2006 were analyzed.

[A rare lesion of the central nervous system: inflammatory pseudotumor].

Inflammatory pseudotumor is an uncommon tumor, initially described in the lung, but which can involve various organs. It is a controversial entity. We report the case of a 19-year-old-man with an inflammatory pseudotumor localized in the central nervous system, revealed by epilepsy.

[A rare case of diminished visual acuity: neurohypophyseal granular cell tumor].

A neurohypophyseal granular cell tumor was found in a 60-year-old man who presented diminished visual acuity. Neuronavigation resection via a fronto-pteronial approach removed split up material. The diagnosis was established by histology and immunochemical studies.

Vertebromedullary wound with ureteral fistula.

We report a case of associated vertebromedullary and ureteral lesions in a severely injured patient, a victim of a gunshot aggression in Africa. Urine extended from the ureteral fistula through the third lumbar vertebral body, blended with cerebrospinal fluid from the dural attrition, and flowed very slowly through the dorsal exit ballistic hole. This is to our knowledge the first such case described in the literature.

[Spinal cord compression by arachnoid cysts].

Spinal arachnoid cysts are considered to be rare entities, intradural locations are even less common. We report two cases of patients (two women aged 77- and 21-year-old) who presented spinal cord compression by intradural arachnoid cysts. For the second patient, repeated surgical procedures were necessary to improve the neurological status.

[Thoracic and thoraco-lumbar discs herniations: diagnosis and therapeutic management].

Summary Management of symptomatic thoracic disc hemiations is difficult because of their polymorphic symptomatology and hardness to join the intervertebral thoracic disc surgically. The objective of this study was first to show the difficult diagnosis of these discal herniations and their posterior approach particularities; secondly, to analyse our results and compare them with those of the literature. This retrospective study analyses a four patients series operated between January 1997 and march 2003 using intraoperative somatosensory evoked potentials.

[Neuronavigation in third ventricle tumors].

The authors present the results of neuronavigation as a help to open neurosurgery for the tumors of the third ventricle. From January, 1995 to August, 1999, six image-guided surgical procedures were performed to remove third ventricle lesions : 4 colloïd cysts, 1 ependymoma, and 1 craniopharyngioma. The operative approach was transcortical in 5 cases, and transcallosal in 1 case.

[Imaging networks, surgical simulation, computer-assisted neurosurgery].

Objective: In 1988, the neurosurgeons and neuroradiologists at the Val-de-Grâce hospital decided to create a stereotaxis site using advanced medical imaging date (CT-scan or MRI).

Methods: Two MRI machines and on CT unit were linked to a network (ETHERNET) available for radiologists in 1989. Neurosurgeons adapted stereotaxis sites using Leksell, Fisher and CRW software for MRI.