[Cerebrospinal fluid, especially cell findings, in subarachnoid hemorrhage]

Liquor samples (n = 303 each from the Neurological Department of the Wilhelm Pieck University Rostock, GDR and the Neurological Hospital of the Pommeranian Medical Academy, Szczecin, Poland) collected from patients following subarachnoid hemorrhage are used as a basis to present various findings for the, on the whole, characteristic hemorrhagic liquor syndrome. The differential liquor cell picture (sedimentation after Sayk) is important for determining the time of the hemorrhage and the post-hemorrhage phase and for identifying recidivating hemorrhage and complications, including hemorrhagic meningoencephalitis (lympho-plasmocytic cells), post-traumatic states (activated macrophage and storage function) and blastomatous infiltration (malignoma cells). Artificial blood contamination (easily recognisable immediately after puncture) leads to differences, with less granulocytosis and a few sparsely charged macrophages, a few days later; the same also applies to diseases stemming from the vessels and hematomas that are not in contact with the liquor space. Despite the introduction of diagnostic hardware, examination of the liquor a few days after subarachnoid hemorrhage is still important as a means of identifying recidivating hemorrhage and complications and, in particular, for differentiation from inlammatory diseases of the CNS.