Doctors fix spinal fluid leak with glue

May 27, 2007

U.S. doctors injected a biosynthetic glue to seal off a spinal fluid leak and restore a comatose patient to consciousness.

Lead author Dr. Wouter I. Shievink of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles said the procedure, described in a recent issue of The Lancet, is the first known report of a situation in which a patient's coma was reversed by the injection of glue.

The patient was suffering from low intracranial pressure caused by a small hole in the dura through which spinal fluid leaked. A team of neurosurgeons and neuroradiologists used CT scan guidance to carefully place a needle and inject a commonly used glue directly to the site of the leak, the hospital said Friday in a release.

Rate this story - 3.8 /5 (10 votes)

rank
1
2
3
4
5

view popular

Other News

Multitasking may be Achilles heel for hepatitis C

Medicine & Health / Research

4 hours ago | 5 / 5 (1) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Hepatitis C, a formidable virus that affects 130 million people worldwide, is nursing some pretty impressive bruises. By knocking out sections and subsections of one of its proteins, scientists reveal weak ...

Gene therapy improves vision

Medicine & Health / Research

5 hours ago | 5 / 5 (2) | 0

German scientist Paul Ehrlich found what he coined the "magic bullet" in the early 20th century upon developing the world’s first effective treatment of syphilis.

Tissue tension regulates tumor progression

Medicine & Health / Cancer

5 hours ago | not rated yet | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- UCSF scientists have shown for the first time that the rigidity of a tissue can induce cancer. The research team identified an enzyme that is crucial for regulating tissue stiffness and demonstrated that ...

Measured -- The time it takes us to find the words we need

Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry

7 hours ago | 3.3 / 5 (3) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The time it takes for our brains to search for and retrieve the word we want to say has been measured for the first time. The discovery is reported in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Ac ...

Multiple health concerns surface as winter, vitamin D deficiences arrive

Medicine & Health / Health

10 hours ago | 5 / 5 (2) | 3

A string of recent discoveries about the multiple health benefits of vitamin D has renewed interest in this multi-purpose nutrient, increased awareness of the huge numbers of people who are deficient in it, spurred research ...