We studied seventy-five patients with brain lesions biopsied by stereotaxis from March 1993 to December 1998 at Universidade Federal de São Paulo - Escola Paulista de Medicina. The three most frequent lesions were: metastasis, low grade astrocytomas and glioblastoma multiforme. The morbidity rate was 2.66% due to: one case of scalp infection in a patient with thalamic cyst; and a partial seizure during surgery in a patient with lynphoma. The mortality rate was 1.33% due to increasing of cerebral edema after biopsy and the patient died after one week. The diagnostic accuracy was 89.33%.
stereotactic biopsy; morbidity; mortality; diagnostic accuracy; brain edema
