Abstract
Although carcinomatous meningitis is a good descriptive term, the lesion is purely neoplastic and signs of meningitis are not always present. It therefore seems more appropriate to speak of meningeal carcinomatosis. This affection is a diffuse or widespread multifocal seeding of the leptomeninges of the brain and spinal cord by a metastatic tumour. Eberth (1) gave the first description of a patient with this clinical picture. Recent reports indicate that this complication of systemic cancer is a still increasing problem (2, 3). Because the blood-brain barrier prevents many anti-neoplastic drugs from reaching the central nervous system, it is extremely difficult to treat metastasis beyond this barrier.
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© 1980 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers bv, The Hague
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Swen, J.W.A., Hengefeld, J.W., Endtz, L.J. (1980). Clinical Aspects of Meningeal Carcinomatosis. In: Ongerboer de Visser, B.W., Bosch, D.A., van Woerkom-Eykenboom, W.M.H. (eds) Neuro-Oncology. Developments in Oncology, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8919-1_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8919-1_20
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