[The cerebral abscess (author's transl)].

Abstract

The incidence of cerebral abscess is assessed at 1 in 500,000 per annum, the relative frequency among neurosurgical operations at 2 per thousand. The most common mode of development is metastatic from chronic cranial or pulmonary infections. The abscess develops from the initial stage of the focal encephalitis, often with few symptoms, after a latent stage of weeks or months to the third stage of the manifest encapsulated cerebral abscess, a macroscopicsketch of which is drawn. In metastatic and advanced abscesses resulting from chronic infection, anaerobic organisms predominate, in primary cerebral infections due to trauma or operation, aerophilic colonization. Among the clinical diagnostic procedures computer tomography is dominant. The results of combined antibiotic and surgical therapy are good with early computer tomography: mortality less than 2%. postoperative morbidity is, however, more than 15%.