Lumbar-peritoneal shunt

A lumbar-peritoneal shunt is a technique to channelise the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from the lumbar thecal sac into the peritoneal cavity.

Overview

A shunt is described as a tube, catheter or "surgically created anastomosis" and is designed to bypass or redirect bodily fluids from one point in the body to another.

Lumbar-peritoneal shunts are used in neurological disorders, in cases of chronic increased intracranial pressure to drain excess cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from the Subarachnoid cavity associated with such conditions as hydrocephalus and Benign intracranial hypertension (BIH) also known as idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) and pseudotumor cerebri (PTC), idiopathic intracranial hypertension is the preferred name for the condition.

There are various categories of medical shunts and there are two main categories of shunt used in the treatment of chronic increased intracranial pressure due to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), they are cerebral shunts and lumbar shunts (extracranial shunts). Below is a list of the various types of the above two categories of shunts: