Loading...
When noninvasive evaluation cannot confirm the cause of rapidly progressive disease involving the brain, the question of whether to perform brain biopsy often arises. In a study from Emory University, neurosurgeons reviewed the records of 51 consecutive adults who underwent open brain biopsy between 1999 and 2008 to determine the cause of acute or subacute neurological decline (usually decline in cognition). Patients with mass lesions, known malignancies, and HIV/AIDS were excluded. The most common presumptive preoperative diagnoses were vasculitis (24 cases), encephalitis (8 cases), and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (7 cases).
Brain biopsy established diagnoses in 18 cases: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (8), amyloidosis (3), lymphoma (2), encephali…