Cortisone and ACTH as an Adjunct to the Surgery of Craniopharyngiomas

Abstract

THE surgical management of craniopharyngiomas, whether radical or conservative, has always been hazardous. Gordy, Peet and Kahn¹ reported a series of 51 cases in which the operative mortality was 41 per cent, due principally to severe hypothalamic reactions incident to the surgical manipulation. Grant,² in summarizing the results of 40 operations on 30 patients, found a case mortality of 35 per cent and an operative mortality of 25 per cent. He noted generalized endocrine glandular atrophy in many of the fatal cases and stated that "the problem in surgical treatment of craniopharyngioma is threefold: to escape hyperthermia from damage to . . .