Syringoperitoneal shunt for treatment of cord cavitation.

A series of twenty-nine patients with cord cavitation were treated by syringoperitoneal shunt. Twenty-two of them showed improvement after operation, five were unchanged and two worsened. Operation was performed in patients with post-traumatic cystic myelopathy, idiopathic syringomyelia, intramedullary tumours associated with cysts, and patients who had developed cystic myelopathy in association with spinal arachnoiditis. Pain improved in twenty patients, sensory symptoms and signs in eleven and weakness in ten.