[Slit ventricle--clinical syndrome or radiologic phenomenon?]

Between 1976 and 1982 336 patients with an age range from several days to 65 years, were treated by ventriculo-atrial or peritoneal shunt, because of internal hydrocephalus of different origins. Regular computerized tomographies demonstrated slit-ventricles in 36 patients. Twenty-eight patients were free of complaints. In 8 patients there were symptoms like nausea and vomiting. In 5 patients these complaints were explainable by other diseases. In only 3 patients these signs were caused by increased intracranial pressure because of ventricular-catheter obliteration. In these 3 cases an enlargement of the ventricles at the time of obliteration was seen. In our series slit-ventricles were seen only as a radiological phenomenon. There was no necessity for neurosurgical treatment at all.