An image of a child with Lamdoid Cranial Synostosis. Notice the swelling on the right side of the head.A child wearing a cranial band.
Find information on thousands of medical conditions and prescription drugs.

Craniosynostosis

Craniosynostosis is a medical condition in which the sutures in the skull of an infant close too early, causing problems with normal brain and skull growth. It can result in craniostenosis, which is the skull deformity caused by the premature closure of the cranial sutures. Also intracranial pressure can be increased. more...

Home
Diseases
A
B
C
Angioedema
C syndrome
Cacophobia
Café au lait spot
Calcinosis cutis
Calculi
Campylobacter
Canavan leukodystrophy
Cancer
Candidiasis
Canga's bead symptom
Canine distemper
Carcinoid syndrome
Carcinoma, squamous cell
Carcinophobia
Cardiac arrest
Cardiofaciocutaneous...
Cardiomyopathy
Cardiophobia
Cardiospasm
Carnitine transporter...
Carnitine-acylcarnitine...
Caroli disease
Carotenemia
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Carpenter syndrome
Cartilage-hair hypoplasia
Castleman's disease
Cat-scratch disease
CATCH 22 syndrome
Causalgia
Cayler syndrome
CCHS
CDG syndrome
CDG syndrome type 1A
Celiac sprue
Cenani Lenz syndactylism
Ceramidase deficiency
Cerebellar ataxia
Cerebellar hypoplasia
Cerebral amyloid angiopathy
Cerebral aneurysm
Cerebral cavernous...
Cerebral gigantism
Cerebral palsy
Cerebral thrombosis
Ceroid lipofuscinois,...
Cervical cancer
Chagas disease
Chalazion
Chancroid
Charcot disease
Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease
CHARGE Association
Chediak-Higashi syndrome
Chemodectoma
Cherubism
Chickenpox
Chikungunya
Childhood disintegrative...
Chionophobia
Chlamydia
Chlamydia trachomatis
Cholangiocarcinoma
Cholecystitis
Cholelithiasis
Cholera
Cholestasis
Cholesterol pneumonia
Chondrocalcinosis
Chondrodystrophy
Chondromalacia
Chondrosarcoma
Chorea (disease)
Chorea acanthocytosis
Choriocarcinoma
Chorioretinitis
Choroid plexus cyst
Christmas disease
Chromhidrosis
Chromophobia
Chromosome 15q, partial...
Chromosome 15q, trisomy
Chromosome 22,...
Chronic fatigue immune...
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic granulomatous...
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
Chronic myelogenous leukemia
Chronic obstructive...
Chronic renal failure
Churg-Strauss syndrome
Ciguatera fish poisoning
Cinchonism
Citrullinemia
Cleft lip
Cleft palate
Climacophobia
Clinophobia
Cloacal exstrophy
Clubfoot
Cluster headache
Coccidioidomycosis
Cockayne's syndrome
Coffin-Lowry syndrome
Colitis
Color blindness
Colorado tick fever
Combined hyperlipidemia,...
Common cold
Common variable...
Compartment syndrome
Conductive hearing loss
Condyloma
Condyloma acuminatum
Cone dystrophy
Congenital adrenal...
Congenital afibrinogenemia
Congenital diaphragmatic...
Congenital erythropoietic...
Congenital facial diplegia
Congenital hypothyroidism
Congenital ichthyosis
Congenital syphilis
Congenital toxoplasmosis
Congestive heart disease
Conjunctivitis
Conn's syndrome
Constitutional growth delay
Conversion disorder
Coprophobia
Coproporhyria
Cor pulmonale
Cor triatriatum
Cornelia de Lange syndrome
Coronary heart disease
Cortical dysplasia
Corticobasal degeneration
Costello syndrome
Costochondritis
Cowpox
Craniodiaphyseal dysplasia
Craniofacial dysostosis
Craniostenosis
Craniosynostosis
CREST syndrome
Cretinism
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Cri du chat
Cri du chat
Crohn's disease
Croup
Crouzon syndrome
Crouzonodermoskeletal...
Crow-Fukase syndrome
Cryoglobulinemia
Cryophobia
Cryptococcosis
Crystallophobia
Cushing's syndrome
Cutaneous larva migrans
Cutis verticis gyrata
Cyclic neutropenia
Cyclic vomiting syndrome
Cystic fibrosis
Cystinosis
Cystinuria
Cytomegalovirus
Dilated cardiomyopathy
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
Restrictive cardiomyopathy
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Medicines

Normal skull development

In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 28 bones. Except for the mandible, all of the bones of the skull are joined together by sutures, rigid articulations permitting very little movement.

At birth, the human skull is made up of 45 separate bony elements. As growth occurs, many of these bony elements gradually fuse together into solid bone (for example, the frontal bones).

The bones of the roof of the skull are initially separated by regions of dense connective tissue. At birth these regions are fibrous and moveable, necessary for birth and later growth. Larger regions of connective tissue, called fontanelles, occur where certain bony elements meet. As growth and ossification progress, the connective tissue of the fontanelles is invaded and replaced by bone. The posterior fontanelle usually closes by eight weeks, but the anterior fontanelle can remain up to eighteen months.

Pathophysiology

When one or more sutures fuse prematurely, skull growth can be restricted perpendicular to the suture. If multiple sutures fuse while the brain is still increasing in size, intracranial pressure can increase.

Primary craniosynostosis is believed to be a result of primary defect in the mesenchymal layer ossification in the cranial bones. Secondary craniosynostosis is a result of primary failure of brain growth.

Treatment

Surgery is typically used to seperate the fused sutures of the skull as well as to reshape the skull. Without surgery, blindness and mental retardation is a typical outcome. To treat the cosmetic troubles, a combination of orthodontic and orthognathic surgery can be used to relieve some of the midface deficiency.

Typical surgery begins with a zigzag incision from ear to ear across the top of the head. The scar left by this type of incision makes the hair look more natural than that left by a straight incision would. Raney clips are typically used to curtail bleeding, as cauterization would not result in an aesthetically pleasing result upon healing. Once the scalp is peeled back, pilot holes are drilled through the skull. These pilot holes are then connected, separating the skull into several pieces. Once reshaped, these pieces are placed back on the head (typically in an altered configuration) and held together by a combination of dissolving sutures, plates, and screws. These plates and screws are typically composed of a copolymer comprised of polyglycolic and polylactic acid and will break down into water and carbon dioxide within a year. Demineralized bone matrix is often used to fill gaps left by the expanded skull. Once the Raney clips are removed, dissolving sutures are again used to close the incision.

Read more at Wikipedia.org


[List your site here Free!]


Dr. Ben Carson: top surgeon's life-and-death struggle with prostate cancer - Interview
From Ebony, 1/1/03

BEN Carson will never forget that day last June. The famed pediatric neurosurgeon was in the midst of a delicate brain operation when a nurse handed him the telephone. On the other end of the line was his doctor. What he was told would change his life forever. The Detroit native (whose single mother, with a third-grade education, raised him to become one of the greatest neurosurgeons in the world) had prostate cancer, the high-grade type that spreads aggressively and kills at a high rate. He was told that he would need to have surgery fight away.

"I had asked that I be notified as soon as they found out," says Carson, who had undergone a biopsy after noticing he was urinating more often than usual. "I just didn't want to be worried about it. I have the ability to put things out of my mind. I have always been able to do that. I can very easily isolate things."

Carson, the director of pediatric neurosurgery at the prestigious Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, continued the operation. But shortly afterwards, he began to comprehend the enormity of that fateful telephone call. He had consistently performed what many call medical miracles, like the time he gained international prominence in 1987 after leading the first successful operation to separate Siamese twins attached at the back of the head. Now, at age 50, he was in need of a miracle himself. "The first thing that came to my mind was, `Wow, this is pretty devastating.' I had something that could potentially take me out."

The medical superstar, who had never spent a day in the hospital as a patient, says what worried him the most was the way his illness could possibly affect other people. "I wasn't really concerned about myself," he says. "When I die, I really don't consider that a horrible thing because I have always had a strong faith in God."

Carson says his wife Candy, whom he met as a student at Yale University, and the rest of his family took the news of his cancer hard. "I told my wife, and she was pretty upset. My kids were dumbfounded. But at the same time we all have a deep faith in God. So we prayed about it."

In the days that followed, instead of taking it easy or shutting himself off from the outside world, Carson continued to work. In fact, he worked harder than ever, performing more than 40 surgeries in two weeks. "I wanted to get all of my surgeries done because I didn't know how long I was going to be out," he says. "I didn't want a lot of stuff hanging over my head."

Carson performs between 400 to 500 operations a year, many involving congenital anomalies, like spina bifida, while other operations correct developing problems like brain tumors, craniosynostosis (a condition involving the skull which impedes brain growth), and seizures. In adults, he treats patients with trigeminal neuralgia, an extremely painful condition of the face.

At first, he considered keeping his illness from his patients and the public. "But [information] began to leak, and the rumors were unbelievable," he said. "People said I had a brain tumor, I had lung cancer, that I was going to die imminently, and that I was already dead."

To set the record straight, he issued a statement through the hospital explaining his health condition. "And the newspaper printed it on the obituary page," he says with a chuckle. "Within a few days, we were getting all kinds of condolence letters. People saw the story on the obituary page, and they thought I was dead."

Six weeks after his diagnosis, Carson underwent surgery in an attempt to remove the cancer. "[The process] wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be," he says. "I knew everybody, and I knew they were going to take care of me and make things as easy as possible."

Being a patient, Carson says, taught him how to treat his own patients better. "I try harder now to make sure patients have as much information as possible, not only pre-op, but during the course of their recuperation," he says. "I try to make sure even more now that they know what to expect from day one, day two, day three, from week one, week two, week three."

During the course of Carson's surgery and recovery, he had questions for his medical team. He says he took a very active role in the process, looking at his own scans and x-rays, even seeking second opinions.

Carson found out within hours of the surgery that the operation had been a success. But he also learned something that rocked him to his foundation: The cancer was only one millimeter (as close as it could get) from breaking through his prostate gland, and spreading to other parts of his body.

During his recovery, he received so many flowers, cards and visitors that a security guard had to be stationed outside his room. "The outpouring was unbelievable," he says. "Bags of cards and letters, everybody from the janitors in the hospital to President and Mrs. Bush, saying that they were praying for me. I was getting letters from church congregations, the Netherlands, Australia, Africa, South America. I realized then that a lot of people cared about me."

Months after the surgery, Carson has had no complications. He did not have to undergo chemotherapy or radiation treatments. "I'm totally not worried," he says. "There's no chance of it coming back [after removal of the prostate gland], unless I grow another prostate. That would really be a story."

Carson said his life-and-death battle with cancer has opened his eyes to the disease. "I was always very interested in cancer. I was spending a lot of time researching therapies for cancers that exist, now I'm looking more at root causes of cancer and how it can be prevented," he says. "It made me much more aware of the whole epidemiology of cancer, and particularly prostate cancer, which is rising rapidly in our society, as is breast cancer."

With one in every three men getting prostate cancer, and one in every eight women getting breast cancer, Carson believes there is cause for great concern. "There certainly seems to be some dietary connection to cancer rates," says Carson, who now emphasizes how it important it is for men, particularly Black men, to get their prostate checked. "And clearly there are environmental issues. Pesticides, water contamination, the list goes on and on. It seems that the more highly sophisticated society gets, the more cancer there is. We have to find better ways to control it."

Carson changed his diet to include mostly organic fruits and vegetables. He says stress also has a direct correlation to cancer, one possible reason why neurosurgeons have a much shorter life expectancy than the average population. "I tried to really cut back on stress," says the doctor, who continues to perform surgery almost every day he's at work. "Now I get in at 7 a.m. and go home now at 6:15 p.m. every day. Before it was 8 p.m. Now everybody knows that I'm leaving at 6:15. Unless there is a dire emergency, I'm out of here."

Since returning to work, Carson says he has learned to manage his time better, getting the same things done and managing to get home earlier. "I feel much more relaxed," he says. "I'm not so tired ... I can spend much more quality time with my family."

That quality time includes walks with his wife and enjoying his passion shooting pool. He continues his busy public speaking engagements, many times traveling across the country several times a week to speak to medical groups, schools and business leaders.

Carson says his previously strong faith has only increased since his battle with prostate cancer. He says he asked God for strength to make it through his surgery, as he does with every surgery that he performs. "I pray before every surgery," he says. "I figure if He created the body, He sure knows how to fix it."

COPYRIGHT 2003 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

Return to Craniosynostosis
Home Contact Resources Exchange Links ebay