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Biomedical subjects

N A Feldstein

Publications and source records attributed to N A Feldstein.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Primary central nervous system lymphoma in childhood presenting as progressive panhypopituitarism.

We report a 15-year-old boy who had isolated central diabetes insipidus initially diagnosed at age 11 years. A brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was normal at the time. At age 12 years, growth hormone (GH) testing was performed because of a decline in linear growth rate and demonstrated GH deficiency. After a repeat normal brain MRI, GH therapy was begun. Three years later, hormonal testing revealed prepubertal gonadotropins and low testosterone levels, free thyroxine index, and morning cortisol levels. Repeat brain MRI demonstrated a 9-mm enhancing lesion in the region of the pituitary stalk. The pathologic diagnosis was that of a high-grade malignant B-cell lymphoma, suggestive of Burkitt Lymphoma. Growth hormone therapy has not been associated with an increased incidence of lymphoma. This report underscores the need for vigilance in follow-up brain imaging and hormonal evaluation in children with diabetes insipidus, especially those with evolving anterior hormone deficiencies.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Attenuation of somatosensory evoked potentials during positioning in a patient undergoing suboccipital craniectomy for Chiari I malformation with syringomyelia.

Intraoperative electrophysiologic monitoring can diminish the risk of neurologic injury by enabling the detection of injury at a time when it can be reversed or minimized. This report describes a 14-year-old girl with a Chiari's malformation type I and syringomyelia who underwent a suboccipital decompression and dural patch grafting with concurrent somatosensory evoked potentials. When the patient was turned into the prone position and the neck was flexed, the left-sided somatosensory evoked potential deteriorated. After the patient's neck was repositioned, the left median nerve potential improved but did not return to baseline. Postoperatively, the patient had decreased proprioception of her left arm, which completely resolved at 2-week follow-up. This single case report does not establish the need for routine somatosensory evoked potential monitoring. Nevertheless, deterioration of the potential in this case led directly to a change in the surgical positioning, which may have significantly reduced the chances of a permanent neurologic injury.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Management of Chiari I malformations with holocord syringohydromyelia.

The management of patients with Type I Chiari malformations (CM 1) with or without syringohydromyelia (SHM) has remained quite controversial, and many different surgical procedures have been advocated. Over the past several years, the authors have treated 7 children presenting with CM 1 and holocord syringohydromyelia with suboccipital decompression and duraplasty alone without intradural procedures. All children received MRI imaging at 2-4 months and 1 year postoperatively. On the early postoperative MRI examination, marked reduction in the syringohydromyelia was seen in 6 children, with minimal change in syrinx size in 1 child who was clinically improving after the operation. At 1 year, all children with early collapse remained collapsed, and the child with minimal early collapse demonstrated an approximately 50% reduction in syrinx size. Clinical follow-up (mean 30 months, range 21-50 months) showed good results in all patients: none of the children have required further neurosurgical intervention, and all have shown improvement in their preoperative function. One child with a 46 degrees scoliosis had a complete collapse of her SHM, but ultimately required spinal fusion. The presenting clinical findings, operative technique, MRI imaging and clinical outcomes will be discussed. The results from these 7 patients with CM 1 and holocord syringomyelia suggest that posterior fossa decompression alone (without intradural procedures) can provide excellent radiographic and clinical outcome.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Ventricular volume following third ventriculostomy.

OBJECT: Ventricular size often shows no obvious change following third ventriculostomy, particularly in the early postoperative period, making postoperative evaluation difficult without expensive and often invasive testing in patients with equivocal clinical responses. The authors hypothesized that performing careful volumetric measurements would show decreases in size within the first 3 weeks after surgery. METHODS: Volumetric measurements were calculated from standard 3 x 3-mm axial computerized tomography (CT) scans obtained immediately before and 3 and 21 days after surgery. Two independent investigators measured third ventricular volume in a series of 16 patients and lateral ventricular volume in 10 of the patients undergoing stereotactically guided endoscopic third ventriculostomy for noncommunicating hydrocephalus. Fifteen patients were symptomatically improved at the time the follow-up scan was obtained. Third ventricular volume decreased in all patients by a mean of 35% (range 7.8-95.1%) and lateral ventricular volume decreased in all patients by a mean of 33% (range 4.5-80.3%). The degree of change correlated with the length of preoperative symptoms (p < 0.005). The one patient who experienced no improvement showed no decrease in third ventricular volume. In seven of 10 patients, the decrease in third ventricular volume exceeded the decrease in lateral ventricular volume. Repeated measurements indicated that the 95% confidence interval for the authors' calculations varied around the mean by 2.5% for third ventricular volume and 1.2% for lateral ventricular volume. Long-term outcome was excellent, with only one case of delayed failure. The mean follow-up duration was 12 months. CONCLUSIONS: Volumetric measurements calculated from standard CT scans will show a demonstrable decrease in ventricular volume soon after successful third ventriculostomy and can be helpful in assessing patients postoperatively. Although the third ventricle may exhibit a greater decrease, the lateral ventricular measurements are more accurate. Patients with more indolent symptoms show the smallest change.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Massive intracranial arachnoid cyst in a developmentally normal infant: case report and literature review.

Intracranial arachnoid cysts are developmental anomalies that are generally asymptomatic. We describe a 6-month-old boy with macrocephaly but normal neurological development who was found to have a rare, massive basal arachnoid cyst occupying most of the cranium and extending superiorly, causing significant shift due to mass effect. A cystoperitoneal shunt was placed, producing both a decrease in the arachnoid cyst dimensions and a concomitant reexpansion of parenchyma. After consideration of various management options, such a shunt system appears to offer a low risk of complications and a high likelihood of success.

Arachnoid Cysts↗
PubMed1997

Eosinophilic granuloma of the clivus: case report, follow-up of two previously reported cases, and review of the literature on cranial base eosinophilic granuloma.

OBJECTIVE AND IMPORTANCE: To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of the use of stereotactic radiotherapy for an eosinophilic granuloma (EG) of the clivus. We report follow-up information on two previously reported cases and suggest a management plan for this rare lesion. CLINICAL PRESENTATION: We report the case of a 4.5-year-old boy who presented with a complete abducens palsy on the right with an associated head turn. A computed tomographic scan of his head revealed a lytic lesion on that side, and magnetic resonance imaging showed the mass to be of low intensity on T1-weighted images and of high intensity on T2-weighted images with heterogeneous enhancement. INTERVENTION: A transnasal stereotactic biopsy was performed, revealing an EG. The patient was treated with stereotactic radiotherapy, and he became symptom-free with radiographic resolution of his lesion. Reviewing the literature, we found 13 series with 87 cases of EG in the petrous portion of the temporal bone. EG in the cranial base occurring outside of the temporal bone or in the temporal bone and extending intracranially is, however, quite rare, with only nine other cases reported, two of them clival. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest a classification schema in which cranial base EG lesions be grouped with either the more common extracranial petrous temporal bone lesions or the very rare intracranial lesions. Although there are few cases in the literature, treatment results indicate that clival EG, and perhaps all intracranial cranial base EGs, be treated by a biopsy alone, followed by surgery or stereotactic radiotherapy if there is an incomplete resolution of the symptoms or if there is a recurrence.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Extramedullary hematopoiesis within a frontoethmoidal encephalocele in a newborn with holoprosencephaly.

We present the first report of extramedullary hematopoiesis (EMH) in an encephalocele. The patient was a new-born with semilobar holoprosencephaly, a frontoethmoidal encephalocele, and a large subdural hematoma. The encephalocele appeared as a hemorrhagic mass, protruding from the forehead to cover the right eye, without involvement of the sinuses or nasopharynx. Computerized tomography and magnetic resonance imaging studies ruled out other forms of holoprosencephaly and confirmed the continuity of the brain with the extruded mass. Immunohistochemistry confirmed the presence of an atrophic epithelium covering the mass. Histologic examination of the encephalocele revealed EMH both within and adjacent to malformed cerebral cortex, with a tendency for the hematopoietic cells to line up in columns within malformed cerebral cortex. We propose that a single event during the fourth week of gestation could both interrupt closure of the neural tube, giving rise to the encephalocele, and impair migration of the neural crest, leading to holoprosencephaly secondary to failure of neural crest derivatives to induce basomedial telencephalic differentiation. EMH may have been induced from hematopoietic stem cells in the richly vascular meningeal component of the encephalocele, in response to anemia and hypoxia.

Biomarkers↗