[A rare complication of shunt therapy. Metastasis of brain tumors by cerebrospinal fluid drainage]

Abstract

Shunting of cerebrospinal fluid to extracranial spaces has been a common and effective procedure for symptomatic therapy of hydrocephalus since the fifties. In 1954 the first spreading of tumor cells via a ventriculo-pleural shunt was reported. We are presenting a case of a 10 month old girl with a medulloblastoma of the lower brain stem with spreading of the intracranial tumor through a ventriculoperitoneal shunt. Further 43 cases of the world literature with shunt-associated metastasizing of brain tumors are analysed. The extraneural spreading of tumor cells through shunt tubes must be considered as a possible complication of the shunting procedure.