Uso de pericardio humano en neurocirugía

objective. to describe and to analyze a series of patients operated in our service by different pathologies, in which we used pericardium of alive donor for dural closure, stored at 80°c below cero in our hospital. method. a retrospective analysis was designed to evaluate the medical records of 33 patients in which human pericardium were used, in a period of time between 2006 and 2008. results. the age of the patients ranged from 1 month to 19 years old (average age: 6.6). 17 were male and 16 female. the surgeries in which we used, by different reasons, human pericardium for dural closure were: 7 posterior fossa tumors, 6 supratentorial tumors, 5 traumatic brain injury (intracranial hypertension), 3 arnold-chiari malformations, 3 spontaneous haematomas, 2 arterio-venous malformations, 2 lumbo-sacral lipomas, 2 encephaloceles, 1 surgery for epilepsy, 1 spinal cord tumor, and 1 brainstem tumor. the complications found were: 2 pseudomeningoceles and 1 csf fistula. there were no systemic allergic reactions or local skin changes or infections. follow up: 18.6 months. conclusion. we considered that human pericardium is an excellent, effective and safe cranial and spinal dural substitute, presenting advantages such as: to be impermeable, easy to suture and to handle, providing hermetic sealing, low antigenicidad and not to induce reactions to strange body.