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Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a severe complication in neurosurgery. The best treatment of PE is thrombolytic therapy, but the presence of either intracranial neoplasm or recent neurosurgical procedures is considered a major contraindication to this therapy. We have used urokinase thrombolytic therapy in nine of our patients with severe PE that occurred from 7 to 34 days after a neurosurgical operation. All patients survived. No intracranial hemorrhage occurred. We also advocate thrombolytic therapy for severe PE in patients who were recently operated on by neurosurgical procedure.

A patient harboring multiple hereditary exostoses with a long-lasting tetraparesis owing to intraspinal osteochondroma is described. The results of surgical treatment were poor in contrast to the results achieved by other previous authors performing decompression of the spinal cord. The related literature is briefly reviewed and conclusions are drawn in favor of computed tomographic examination of the spine of patients with vertebral complaints.