[Diagnosis and therapy of chronic subdural hematoma]

The authors evaluate a group of 72 patients with the diagnosis of chronic subdural haematoma (cSDH). All subdural collections were confirmed on a computer tomograph. Sixty-nine patients were operated by trepanation and drainage into a closed system which was maintained for a maximum of five days. Three patients with a hyperdense CT finding were subjected to extended trepanation or craniectomy with membranectomy. The CT picture made on the 2nd-4th day after operation revealed a persisting subdural collection in 35% of the patients subjected to trephination. The authors were concerned with the problem whether this percentage makes trephination with drainage controversial as the only universal therapeutic method in cSDH. Nevertheless successful reinsertion of the drain (85%) is in favour of trephination although drainage from the first trephination in not always the definite solution. Conversely revision by craniotomy was a failure in 7 patients where the drainage method was not successful. Radical surgery proved useful only in the initial period in patients who despite a chronic course had on CT a hyperdense collection. The influence of the site, volume of collection, lateral overpressure and possibly a subsidiary CT finding could not be proved on a statistically significant scale, therefore the authors did not use these CT markers when selecting surgical intervention.