Wheat germ oil (vitamin E) in the treatment of congenital nonobstructive hydrocephalus

Abstract

N UMEROUS methods of therapy, nonsurgical and surgical, some of them very ingenious, have been suggested in the past for the treatment of this disorder. The nonsurgical methods were aimed primarily at the dehydration of the central nervous system through repeated lumbar punctures, ~ the use of hypertonic solutions intravenously or rectally, 2 or the administration of the xanthine group of drugs for the purpose of increasing elimination of fluids through the urinary system2 None of these methods have proved satisfactory except in isolated instances. The surgical procedures in most patients followed Dandy's ~ original method of destroying the choroid plexus in the ventricles or Heile's ~ ingenious but unsatisfactory operation of ureterodural anastomosis. Dandy's operation has been modified by Putnam ~ and Searff ~ by substituting electrocoagulation for actuM resection of the plexus. While the operation entails a high operative mortality, s the results in Putnam's larger series of cases have appeared to offer fair success in selected cases. Whether the arrest of the hydrocephalus was due directly to the destruction of the plexus or was caused by a readjustment for the better of the hematoencephalie barrier as a result of the operation is uncertain. It is known, however, that occasionally an arrest of a progressive hydrocephalus does occur through a spontaneous adjustment of the spinal fluid secretion absorption mechanisms.