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BACKGROUND Enthesopathies are a common cause of axial pain that is amenable to "minimally invasive" therapy. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effectiveness of injection therapy for enthesopathies. DESIGN Single blinded, randomized, and cross-over study. METHODS Thirty-five patients diagnosed as having painful enthesopathies as a major pain generator were studied. Of the patients studied, 86% of patients had undergone prior lumbar spine surgery and all were referred for neurosurgical evaluation for possible surgery. Patients were injected either with anesthetics alone or with anesthetics combined with phenol-glycerol proliferant prolotherapy. Outcomes were analyzed both clinically at the time of regular follow-ups, and by a series of multipart questionnaires. RESULTS Patients received a total of 86 injections, 39 with local anesthetics, and 47 with prolotherapy. By clinical assessment patients obtained excellent to good relief of pain and tenderness after 80% of prolotherapy injections, but only 47% after anesthetics alone. By questionnaire, 66% reported excellent to good relief after prolotherapy vs. 34% after anesthetics alone. Patients reported improvement in work capacity and social functioning following both types of injections, but a greater reduction in focal pain intensity following prolotherapy injections. The mean and median durations of persistent relief were 2.4 and 1.75 months with prolotherapy vs. 1.8 and 0.75 months with anesthetics alone. Roughly 10% obtained greater than six months of relief from either injection. In the crossover portion of the study, patients reported that prolotherapy injections following initial anesthetic-only injections provided much better relief than that achieved after their anesthetic-only injections, and that anesthetic-only injections following initial prolotherapy injections failed to provide relief as good as that achieved after their prolotherapy. Subsequent to this study, only four of 35 patients required additional spine surgery, but 29 of the 35 patients requested additional injections. CONCLUSIONS Injection therapy of painful enthesopathies can provide significant relief of axial pain and tenderness combined with functional improvement, even in "failed back syndrome" patients. Phenol-glycerol prolotherapy provides better and longer lasting relief than injection with anesthetics alone. Prolotherapy provides over six months of relief for some patients but generally provides relief for only a few months. However, most patients described good to excellent relief, felt that the injections had been beneficial, and requested additional injections for recurrent or residual focal pain.

Enthesopathies are a common cause of axial pain that is amenable to "minimally invasive" therapy.To evaluate the effectiveness of injection therapy for enthesopathies.Single blinded, randomized, and cross-over study.Thirty-five patients diagnosed as having painful enthesopathies as a major pain generator were studied. Of the patients studied, 86% of patients had undergone prior lumbar spine surgery and all were referred for neurosurgical evaluation for possible surgery. Patients were injected either with anesthetics alone or with anesthetics combined with phenol-glycerol proliferant prolotherapy. Outcomes were analyzed both clinically at the time of regular follow-ups, and by a series of multipart questionnaires.Patients received a total of 86 injections, 39 with local anesthetics, and 47 with prolotherapy. By clinical assessment patients obtained excellent to good relief of pain and tenderness after 80% of prolotherapy injections, but only 47% after anesthetics alone. By questionnaire, 66% reported excellent to good relief after prolotherapy vs. 34% after anesthetics alone. Patients reported improvement in work capacity and social functioning following both types of injections, but a greater reduction in focal pain intensity following prolotherapy injections. The mean and median durations of persistent relief were 2.4 and 1.75 months with prolotherapy vs. 1.8 and 0.75 months with anesthetics alone. Roughly 10% obtained greater than six months of relief from either injection. In the crossover portion of the study, patients reported that prolotherapy injections following initial anesthetic-only injections provided much better relief than that achieved after their anesthetic-only injections, and that anesthetic-only injections following initial prolotherapy injections failed to provide relief as good as that achieved after their prolotherapy. Subsequent to this study, only four of 35 patients required additional spine surgery, but 29 of the 35 patients requested additional injections.Injection therapy of painful enthesopathies can provide significant relief of axial pain and tenderness combined with functional improvement, even in "failed back syndrome" patients. Phenol-glycerol prolotherapy provides better and longer lasting relief than injection with anesthetics alone. Prolotherapy provides over six months of relief for some patients but generally provides relief for only a few months. However, most patients described good to excellent relief, felt that the injections had been beneficial, and requested additional injections for recurrent or residual focal pain.

The technique of selective third ventricular catheterization and pantopaque ventriculography is described and the author's experience with 17 cases is briefly summarized.This technique has been found to be especially useful in patients suspected of harboring a posterior fossa lesion. Its chief advantages are the speed with which it can be executed and the avoidance of the necessity of manipulating the patient during the procedure (the entire procedure is done with the patient supine), the latter being of especial value in patients who are seriously ill, unable to cooperate or unconscious.The procedure has proved to be safe, although several points of caution are discussed.

Symptomatic hydrocephalus after subarachnoid haemorrhage seems to result both from mechanical obstruction of arachnoid villi and basilar cisterns and from an inflammatory cellular reaction in the villi. Subarachnoid haemorrhage was induced in rabbits using whole blood injected through an implanted intraventricular needle. Control rabbits receiving intraventricular methyl prednisolone acetate but no blood, developed ventricular dilation significantly more often than untreated controls. Eighty-three per cent of rabbits with untreated experimental subarachnoid haemorrhage developed moderate to severe hydrocephalus. Intramuscular steroid therapy significantly reduced the incidence of hydrocephalus.

The intracranial pressure "reserve" test seems to be the most reliable method of determining when the brain's natural mechanisms for pressure compensation for added intracranial volume have been compromised or exhausted. The test employs a timed sequence of intracranial fluid injections, but as a safety precaution injections are discontinued if intracranial pressure remains elevated more than 10 Torr over baseline. In this case, a linear extrapolation is then calculated to determine the elevation which might have been achieved by a full series of injections. However, this linear extrapolation has been criticised on the expectation that an exponential response should be expected. A series of experimental observations in dogs and baboons and a review of clinical records in humans have been made to determine the observed slope of increase following aliquot injection during performance of the intracranial pressure reserve test. In these species the observed response was actually linear in shape rather than exponential. This held true even for different initial baseline values and with different volumes of "lesion" balloon inflations in experimental animals. A theoretic explanation is proposed.