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.