Neurosurgeons Operate on Newborn with Extreme Hydrocephalus, Macrocephaly

Neurosurgeons at All Children’s Hospital/Johns Hopkins Medicine (St. Petersburg, Fla.) and the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine (Tampa, Fla.) recently achieved excellent physical and aesthetic results after surgery on an infant born with extreme macrocephaly due to hydrocephalus. This was accomplished with routine implantation of a ventriculoperitoneal shunt, followed by a new operation to stabilize and reduce the size of the baby’s head. Both surgeries were performed during the infant’s first week of life. The surgeons report that as far as they know, this is the first reported case of cranial fixation in such a young child with extreme hydrocephalus.

Full details of the surgical procedures and their successful outcomes can be found in the article “Cranial reduction and fixation with a resorbable plate combined with cerebrospinal fluid shunting for difficult-to-manage macrocephaly related to hydrocephalus,” by Jotham Manwaring, MD, and colleagues, available online, ahead of print, in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics. In the article, the authors report the case of an infant born with extreme macrocephaly. The baby’s head measured 50 cm in circumference (more than the 99th percentile). His anterior fontanel bulged, and there was wide separation between the bones of all cranial sutures. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) confirmed the diagnosis of severe hydrocephalus. For more information, click here to read the full release.