INTRODUCTION Carcinomatous meningitis in breast cancer occurs as a complication in up to 5% of all cases. It is a very devastating diagnosis, with a median patient survival of about 3 months. Treatment is very controversial, and different modalities of treatment have been used but none of them show significant benefit for overall survival. CASE REPORTS We report 2 cases of carcinomatous menin...

Sixteen cases of hepatoma presenting as craniospinal metastasis without obvious hepatic involvement were reviewed. Metastatic spread of hepatoma to the cerebrum was found in one case, to the cranium in six cases, and to the vertebrae in nine cases. All of these cases had midly abnormal liver function when first evaluated. Of those patients with hepatoma, 56% had evidence of hepatomegaly. Alpha ...

BACKGROUND Medulloblastoma and other types of tumors that gain access to the cerebrospinal fluid can spread throughout the craniospinal axis. The purpose of this study was to devise a simple multi-compartment kinetic model using established tumor cell growth and treatment sensitivity parameters to model the complications of this spread as well as the impact of treatment with craniospinal radiot...

The impact of treatment with either cranial or craniospinal irradiation with or without cytotoxic chemotherapy for a brain tumour distant from the hypothalamic-pituitary axis was assessed in 29 children who had reached final height. All had received growth hormone treatment for radiation induced growth hormone deficiency. Final height, segmental growth during puberty, and duration of puberty we...

PURPOSE Craniospinal irradiation poses technical difficulties that may be addressed with the use of the newer technologies that have become available over the past decade. The use of CT simulation allows improved target localisation and beam geometry definition while significantly reducing the treatment simulation time. We have developed a CT-based technique for whole CNS irradiation in the sup...

Pineal parenchymal tumors are rare. Of the three types of pineal parenchymal tumors, pineocytomas are the least aggressive and are not known to diffusely disseminate. In this paper, we report the successful treatment of a case of pineocytoma with diffuse leptomeningeal relapse following initial stereotactic radiotherapy. A 39-year-old female presented with headaches, balance impairment, urinary...

We present a case of craniospinal hypotension in a 45-year-old woman with an associated epidural pseudomeningocele extending the entire length of the spine. The epidural pseudomeningocele was caused by a CSF leak at the T8 level. In addition to typical low-pressure symptoms, the epidural pseudomeningocele caused atypical symptoms characterized by positional thoracic radiculopathy. Craniospinal ...