J Korean Neurosurg Soc.
1995 Jan;24(1):73-78.
Intracerebral Mass Lesions Presenting "Drop Attacks"
- Affiliations
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- 1Department of Neurosurgery, College of Medicine, Soonchunhyang University, Seoul, Korea.
Abstract
- "Drop attack" is defined as sudden falling spell occurring without warning or postictal symptoms with immediate righting, and without loss of consciousness. Numerous mechanism have been proposed to explain the drop attacks. But there were no scientifically established answer for the extraordinary rapid evolution of the drop attacks. The authors report three cases of intracerebral mass lesions presenting with drop attacks. Among them, one was racemose brain abscess on the juxtaventricle of right parieto-occipital area in 3-year old girl, the another one was germinoma at genu portion of corpus callosum and pineal gland respectively in 20-year old male, and the remained one was neurocysticercosis around frontal horn of lateral ventricle in 60-year old male. The brain abscess and neurocysticercosis were almost totally removed, and conventional radio-therapy after stereotatic biopsy was carried out to germinoma of corpus callosum and pineal region. Drop attacks symptoms were abolished immediately after mass removal in brain abscess and neurocysticercosis, and gradually subsided in the germinoma case.