Invasive disseminated aspergillosis with multiple intracranial localizations associated to chronic granulomatous disease: Case report

L’apergillose invasive disséminée avec localisation cérébrale est une pathologie rare. Elle survient le plus souvent dans le cadre d’une immunodépression. Le type d’aspergillus responsable de ce tableau est le plus souvent l’Aspergillus fumigatus ; il peut s’agir exceptionnellement d’un Aspergillus nidulans. La prise en charge des lésions cérébrales entrant dans le cadre de cette pathologie comprend la chirurgie et le traitement  médical. Le pronostic est très sombre. Nous rapportons le cas d’une fillette âgée de 8 ans, ayant dans les antécédents une histoire d’infections répétées, qui a présenté une aspergillose invasive disséminée avec localisations cérébrales multiples. Cette patiente a été traitée par chirurgie et traitement médical. Elle est décédée d’une hépatite B au bout de 40 mois

Open Drainage in Chronic Subdural Hematomas: A Prospective Study of 189 Cases

Background & Importance: Chronic subdural hematoma (CSH) is one of the most frequent intracranial hemorrhages in adults. However, gold standard treatment of CSH is not yet defined. Since the 80’s, closed drainage is a standard among techniques using drains because the open type has been incriminated in high rates of postoperative infections. However, closed drainage requires materiel which is sometimes not available or expensive in some countries. Open drainage was reintroduced in our department in the middle of the 90’s because of economic crisis at this time. We have then conducted a prospective study to assess safety and efficacy of open drainage in treatment of CSH. Case Presentation: A prospective study of adult patients with CSH was conducted from January 2008 to December 2011. All patients have the same surgical procedure which included one burr-hole craniostomy, spontaneous evacuation and open drainage. The study focused on infectious complications, postoperative seizures, and recurrences. Results are compared with those of literature. In our study, 189 patients were operated with mean age of 69.2 years old. Of all, 163 patients were cured. Overall rate of complications was 15.34% with an infection rate of 1.58%, a postoperative seizure rate of 1.05% and a recurrence rate of 14.2%. Mortality rate was 5.8%. Results were in concordance with those of large series of literature. Conclusion: Data of the current study suggested that open drainage is a safe and efficient method in treatment of CSH. It is also a costefficient treatment that could be very interesting for middle- a nd low-income countries

History of African women in neurosurgery

The number of women in the medical field has increased in Africa over the last few decades, yet the underrepresentation of women within neurosurgery has been a recurrent theme. Of all surgical disciplines, neurosurgery is among the least equitable, and the rate of increase in female surgeons lags behind other surgical disciplines such as general surgery. This historical review provides an overview of the history of women in neurosurgery and their current status on the African continent. To the authors\u27 knowledge, this is the first article to provide such an overview