Doctors fix spinal fluid leak with glue

LOS ANGELES, May 25 (UPI) -- U.S. doctors injected a biosynthetic glue to seal off a spinal fluid leak and restore a comatose patient to consciousness.

Lead author Dr. Wouter I. Shievink of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles said the procedure, described in a recent issue of The Lancet, is the first known report of a situation in which a patient's coma was reversed by the injection of glue.

The patient was suffering from low intracranial pressure caused by a small hole in the dura through which spinal fluid leaked. A team of neurosurgeons and neuroradiologists used CT scan guidance to carefully place a needle and inject a commonly used glue directly to the site of the leak, the hospital said Friday in a release.