Abstract.Computer assisted surgical planning and image guided technology have become increasingly used in neurosurgery. We have developed a system based on ATmC (Adaptive Template moderated Classification) for the automated segmentation of 3D MRI brain data sets of patients with brain tumors (meningiomas and low grade gliomas) into the skin, the brain, the ventricles and the tumor. In a validation study of 13 patients with brain tumors, the segmentation results of the automated method are compared to manual segmentations carried out by 4 independent trained human observers. It is shown that the automated method segments brain and tumor with accuracy comparable to the manual method and with improved reproducibility.

We report an extremely rare case of a 22-year-old man with an asymptomatic osteochondroma of the dens of C2 vertebra accidentally found during a brain CT scan examination.

A 27-year-old man with a 2-year history of recurrent hospitalizations for various neurologic and cardiologic emergencies was admitted to our hospital presenting with left hemiparesis, which gradually progressed to quadriparesis, bilateral hemianopsia, intracranial hypertension syndrome, and seizures. A diagnosis of echinococcosis was made, based on the radiologic findings of multiple cerebral hydatid cysts and a sizable cyst of the heart. The hydatid cyst of the heart was treated first with a thoracotomy, and after a month he underwent three consecutive surgical operations for the removal of six cerebral cysts. The patient was on albendazole treatment throughout the entire hospitalization, and this led to the shrinkage and finally to the disappearance of two other cerebral cysts. The patient's focal neurologic signs eventually disappeared, with the exception of a slight unilateral hemianopsia. Ten years after his discharge, he remains in a good condition, with no signs of clinical or radiologic relapse.

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