VASCULAR LESIONS AND TUMORS OF THE BRAIN DIFFICULTIES IN DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS

Abstract

The diagnostic ability of the neurologist is often put to an extreme test when he is asked to decide whether a middle-aged patient with moderate hypertension has a neoplasm or some form of vascular lesion of the brain. Instances of cerebral neoplasm are not uncommon in which the onset of symptoms is very sudden, almost precipitate, and the subsequent clinical course may be so rapidly progressive and so strikingly lacking in the so-called cardinal symptoms of brain neoplasm as to compel the diagnosis of a vascular insult. On the other hand, vascular disease of the brain may frequently unfold a clinical picture, which by its insidious onset and slow development may so simulate a brain neoplasm as to make a differential diagnosis almost, if not altogether, impossible. A group of such cases has been assembled by us during the past two and a half years, and is here presented. REPORT