Differential Intracranial Pressure Recordings in Patients with Dual Ipsilateral Monitors

Abstract

Intracranial pressure monitoring is a useful adjunct in the management of head injury patients, patients with spontaneous intracerebal hemorrhage, and postoperative patients at risk for intracranial complications (Narayan et al. 1982; Winn et al. 1977). Diagnostic inferences drawn from ICP-monitoring devices frequently make the assumption that intracranial pressure is uniform throughout contiguous subarachnoid spaces, although the relevant pathology can often be seen on CT or MR imaging to be asymmetrical. On the other hand, considerable experimental work has shown that pressure differentials can occur among any of the subarachnoid or parenchymal compartments of the central nervous system (Langfitt et al. 1964). The clinical importance of differential subarachnoid pressure measurements was pointed out by Weaver et al. (1982), who documented markedly asymmetric pressures between hemispheres in patients with unilateral mass lesions.