Radicular pain can be a symptom of elevated intracranial pressure

We report two patients with leptomeningeal metastatic disease, one from bre ast cancer and the other from a spinal cord glioma, who developed episodic elevated intracranial pressure (ICP), each episode accompanied by the gradu al onset of severe spine and radicular pain. Symptoms of pain promptly and completely resolved with opening of the on-off valve of each patient's vent riculoperitoneal shunt. It is theorized that the patients' radicular pain w as caused by nerve root ischemia secondary to elevated ICP.