[Diagnostic difficulties in brain strokes in the light of personal observations]

The authors report a clinico-neuropathological analysis of 350 case records and autopsy protocols of patients dying from stroke in the years 1962-1966 at the Department of Neurology of the Grochów Hospital in Warsaw. Full agreement of clinical diagnosis and autopsy diagnosis was found in 314 cases while in 36 cases (about 10%) the clinical diagnosis was not correct. The authors believe that the diagnostic difficulties encountered by clinicians are due frequently to a complex pathological mechanism of vasogenic lesions in the brain and frequency of encephalomalatic foci found in the same patient beside haemorrhagic lesions. In the present material 116 (33%) such cases have been found.