'Surgical' causes of benign intracranial hypertension.

Benign intracranial hypertension is a clinical diagnosis linked to a number of medical and surgical disorders. A common aetiology has not yet been established. It would seem, however, that many, if not all, of these cases can be related to some degree of cerebral venous outflow obstruction. We present here a series of patients with extraluminal compression of the cerebral venous sinuses that has been amenable to surgical resection. These 'surgical' causes of BIH illustrate an important subset of the disease and inform us about the possible pathophysiological principles underlying the disorder.