Diagnosis and therapy of cerebellar angioblastomas

: The mainly infratentorially occurring angioblastomas belong to the group of benign vascular tumours. Histologically, however, one can distinguish from them pleomorphically undifferentiated forms which have an unfavourable prognosis. The article reports on a group of 20 patients who were operated on in the period from 1978 to 1982. The frequency among the brain tumours seen in the same period of time was 4.5 per cent, only related to the infratentorial tumours. Symptomatically, the signs of occlusive hydrocephalus were well to the fore. The exactness of the topical diagnosis by computer tomography in conjunction with microsurgical operation techniques enables a reduction of the operation risk. The postoperative lethality rate was 3 among 20 patients. Attention was drawn to the observation of a family with a genuine v. Hippel-Lindau syndrome in an incomplete form in a descending line with probably autosomal, dominant heredity.