[Penetrating transorbital intracranial foreign body].

About a month prior to admission to our hospital, a 25-year-old man had a quarrel with his friend and was stabbed in his left eye with a cracked bottle of beer. He underwent emergency operation for the injured left eye. Subsequently he was admitted to an ophthalmological ward in our hospital for plastic surgery of an artificial eye. An intracranial foreign body was pointed out, and he was soon transferred to our neurosurgical ward. Plain x-ray films and tomograms of the skull and CT scan showed a foreign body at medial portion of the left superior orbital fissure. Carotid angiography revealed no significant implication of the cerebral vessels. As there was a strong suspicion of cerebral contusion or liquorrhea, a pterional craniotomy was so designed as to do removal of thie foreign body and repair of the dura mater in one stage. The post-operative couse was uneventful without liquorrhea or miningitis. It was emphasized that pterional approach used by Hamby (1970) for surgery of malignant exophthalmos was useful and felicitious in this case. It was additionally reported that cerebrospinal orbitorrhea observed in this case was rare and it might be the third case in the literature.