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A spontaneous acute spinal epidural haematoma during the course of an immune vasculitis is reported. Decompression by laminectomy after acute onset of paraplegia was followed by complete neurological recovery.

210 patients harbouring an intracranial tumour were tested for CEA plasma levels. It could be shown that this investigation was neither a useful screening test for detecting brain neoplasms nor suitable for follow-up on operated brain tumours. However, with the CEA plasma investigation an additional preoperative test is available for distinguishing between primary and secondary brain tumours. The positive evidence is only 29%, but in case of a CEA plasma value above 5.0 ng/ml a metastasis is indicated with a probability of 91%.