Nineteen patients underwent 20 operative procedures for the treatment of recurrent or residual aneurysms. There were 13 small, three large, and four giant lesions; with one exception, all were in the anterior circulation. Five individuals presented with recurrent subarachnoid hemorrhage, six were referred for symptoms of mass effect, and nine were known to have had inadequate treatment at the time of the initial operative procedure. The average time interval from initial treatment to either recurrent subarachnoid hemorrhage or compressive effects was 10.5 and 9.75 years, respectively. No deaths resulted from the reoperative procedures. Two patients suffered moderate disability and one had severe disability. Malpositioned or slipped clips, intraoperative rupture, and inadequate exposure were responsible for 75% of the initial operative failures. The technical difficulty of the reoperative procedure correlated with the length of time between initial and reoperative treatment, the presence of clips and coating agents, and the complexity of the lesion. A classification scheme for preoperative planning and case selection is proposed based on the technical adjuncts required for reoperative aneurysm procedures.

Depression is a common complication/co-morbidity in patients with brain tumors. Better understanding of the relationships between brain tumors and depression should lead to improvement in patient care. This paper reviews these relationships in order to direct further study to improve patient care, and hopefully, outcome. Both anatomic and physiological perturbations in the brain are likely involved in the associations between depression and brain tumors. Tumor treatments are also associated with depression. Depression has a significant negative impact on outcome in brain tumor patients. The role of treatment of depression in brain tumor patients has been scantly studied. Further investigation directed to these areas of knowledge deficit should benefit depressed patients with brain tumors.

The records of 103 pediatric patients having symptomatic chronic extra-axial fluid collections treated at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles from 1977 to 1988 were reviewed. Patients were treated with observation, serial percutaneous needle drainage, drainage through burr holes, drainage into a closed external drainage system, or subdural to peritoneal shunt. If the initial treatment was not effective, additional forms of treatment were instituted. Shunts, ultimately used in 73% of the patients, proved to be the most effective treatment. Of the group with shunts, the extra-axial fluid was unilateral in 20% and bilateral in 80%. In those patients with bilateral effusions, no difference in efficacy of shunts was seen in patients treated with bilateral versus unilateral shunts. Of the 75 patients with shunts, 12% required a shunt revision for progressive or recurrent symptoms. Shunt infections occurred in 3% of the patients, necessitating removal of the shunt and treatment with antibiotics. Eosinophilia in the subdural fluid was associated with shunt obstruction requiring revision. The shunt was never removed in 51% of patients with no untoward effects. This study demonstrates that the most efficacious treatment of symptomatic chronic extra-axial fluid collections in children is a unilateral subdural to peritoneal shunt. The shunt need not be removed after resolution of the fluid collections.