Significance of hemorheology in diagnosis and therapy of ischemic cerebrovascular diseases. Possibilities of therapy: antiedema procedures.

Edema in ischemic cerebrovascular diseases is a cytotoxic edema, followed by a vasogenic edema. An interstitial hydrocephalic cerebral edema is rare. The possibilities of therapy consist in application of osmotherapeutics, diuretics, glucocorticoids, barbiturates and hypothermia. The edema is very much less pronounced in cerebral infarctions than in cerebral hemorrhages or in brain tumors. For this reason, a less-pronounced effect of antiedema therapy is to be expected from the beginning in ischemic cerebrovascular diseases. In addition, practical experience confirms that antiedema treatment is required more rarely and for a shorter time in cerebral infarctions than in cerebral hemorrhages and in cerebral venous thromboses.