Surgical management of spinal cord cysts.

A new surgical method, myelocyst-peritoneal shunt, has been performed on a small series of patients with congenital and acquired spinal cord cysts. In all cases, the progressive deterioration of neurological function ceased and all patients had slight to significant objective and/or subjective improvement in neurological function. The technical method is described along with individual case reports. Due to the short length of follow-up, the small number of operations, and the tendency for spinal cord cysts to spontaneously improve, the author discussed only potential advantages and disadvantages of this procedure as compared to prior spinal cord cyst operations. The creation of an in vitro human module spinal cord cyst by means of this operation has made it possible for the author to perform more basic ongoing investigation into the pathophysiology of spinal cord cysts and other similar disorders.