[Telemetric measurement of intracranial pressure with the help of an electromagnetic detector implanted within the epidural space. Tolerance and reliability verified in 16 cases (author's transl)].

After a detailed description of the technique the authors report the clinical results obtained in a series of 16 patients upon whom the new detector has been implanted and comparative measurements of the intracranial pressure by lumbar puncture were effected. The length of implantation of the detector which was of the order of several months in a majority of cases permitted to verify the stability and tolerance of the device as well as its long-term reliability since the length of functionning was of more than 6 months in half of the patients. Quantitatively, the instantaneous value of the intracranial pressure could be evaluated with the standard deviation of 17 mm of water in comparison to the values obtained by lumbar puncture. While being acceptable in clinical practice, this margin of error can be reduced in the future. The authors intend to utilize this detector at first for the monitoring of intracranial pressure before advocating its use in prolonged surveillance of intracranial pressure.