Salomon Hakim

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Salomón Hakim Dow (born June 4, 1922 in Barranquilla , Departamentos Atlántico , † May 5, 2011 in Bogotá ) was a Colombian neurosurgeon and researcher. He is best known for his first description of normal pressure hydrocephalus and contributed to the development of modern liquorshunts .

Life

His parents Sofía Dow and Jorge Hakim immigrated from Lebanon a year before he was born . The name Hakim means “doctor” or “wise man” in Arabic .

Hakim showed an early technical interest, especially physics and electricity, and was promoted in it. At the age of eleven he was building a working radio. But instead of becoming an engineer, his career aspiration was medicine.

Hakim was married with a daughter and three sons. All of the sons became neurologists. Hakim was very interested in art and music and played bandoneon himself . When, as a teenager, he was once sailing with his family overnight on a Colombian ship, playing bandoneon on deck, Gabriel Garcia Marquez listened to him , remembering the masterful game in his memories. 30 years later both met in Paris and Marquez recognized the bandoneon player.

Hakim died at the age of 88 as a result of a hemorrhagic stroke .

Studies and professional life

He completed his medical studies at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá in 1948 and then worked for the renowned neurosurgeons Gilbert Horrax and James Poppen at the Lahey Clinic in Boston . With a research fellowship in neuropathology , he went to Harvard in 1954 , where he received a Ph.D. acquired and returned to his home country in 1961.

In Colombia he became the director of neurosurgery at the military hospital in Bogotá and professor at the Universidad de los Andes , the Universidad Nacional de Colombia , and the Universidad Javeriana in Colombia.

Normal pressure hydrocephalus and liquor shunts

Hakim became aware of normal pressure hydrocephalus when he found an enlarged cerebral ventricle in the x-rays of a 16-year-old Colombian boy . The boy was previously the victim of a traffic accident and had been diagnosed with irreversible brain damage . The boy was incontinent and unconscious become. After Hakim did a CSF puncture , he woke up again. Hakim managed to drain the CSF permanently and three months later the boy was able to go back to school.

Already during his neuropathological studies, enlarged ventricles were noticed in Alzheimer's patients, but nobody could explain this at the time. It was only through the 16-year-old boy that Hakim realized that it was a normal pressure hydrocephalus. In Colombia, he was also introduced to an employee of the US Consulate Service with normal pressure hydrocephalus, but a puncture in Colombia was refused. So he traveled with the patient to Boston, where he performed the puncture at Massachusetts General Hospital with great success. This prompted his American colleague Raymond Adams, who initially rejected the concept, then used it for himself and placed himself first in the first description of normal pressure hydrocephalus in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1965.

Colombian postage stamp in memory of the first description of normal pressure hydrocephalus and the liquor shunt for its treatment.

Hakim spent his entire professional life researching hydrocephalus, CSF pressure and the ventricular system, partly in his private laboratory. After the liquorshunt was invented in 1949, it made a decisive contribution to further development, which significantly reduced the complication rate and made it possible to develop the shunt into a common and low-risk procedure. Important steps were the valve function for a unidirectional discharge and a pressure mechanism to maintain normal intracranial pressure. The "Hakim Shunt" he developed was completed in 1964 and introduced in 1966. Its developments are still part of every liquorshunt system.

All his life he campaigned for the recognition of normal pressure hydrocephalus worldwide, initially largely on his own, as many colleagues initially assumed a mere medical anomaly. Hakim held about thirty US patents and received numerous awards in later years. In English, normal pressure hydrocephalus is sometimes called "Hakim syndrome". The typical symptoms of normal pressure hydrocephalus ( dementia , urinary incontinence and gait disorders ) are referred to as the Hakim triad .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Sussmann: Dr. Salomon Hakim - a Giant in the Field of Hydrocephalus Obituary (English) of the Hydrocephalus Association on May 9, 2011; Link accessed on August 15, 2019
  2. ^ Sabine Schuchardt: Salomón Hakim, the engineer doctor. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt . Volume 116, 2019, issue 31–32 from August 5, 2019, page [96]; Link accessed on August 15, 2019
  3. ^ RD Adams, CM Fisher, S. Hakim, RG Ojemann, WHN Sweet: Symptomatic occult hydrocephalus with "normal" cerebrospinal fluid pressure. A treatable syndrome. In: New England Journal of Medicine . Volume 273, 1965, Issue July 15, 1965, pages 117-126; PMID 14303656 ; DOI: 10.1056 / NEJM196507152730301
personal data
SURNAME Hakim, Solomon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hakim Dow, Salomón (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Colombian neurosurgeon and researcher
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Barranquilla , Atlántico Department
DATE OF DEATH May 5, 2011
Place of death Bogotá