More children with spina bifida cystica are surviving today because of improved operative treatment and clinical care. Problems arising from spinal deformity in these children are presenting more often for treatment. The purpose of this paper is to observe the natural course of kyphotic spinal deformity seen in association with spina bifida cystica. Specific attention is focused on kyphosis bec...

The prognosis for survival in spina bifida is an important issue for life-care planners and care-givers. This study documents and compares long-term survival in open spina bifida in California, United States of America, and Cambridge, United Kingdom and investigates the relation between mobility in childhood and long-term survival. Survival after the age 6 years was similar in the two series, w...

We present our personal experience on patients with Spina Bifida. It is the result of having treated 1600 children for 12 years at Shanghai Children's Medical Center. We classify the cases on Spina Bifida Manifesta (myelomeningocele, myelocele, lypomyelomeningocele) or Spina Bifida Oculta (lipoma, dermal sinus and thickened filum terminale). For the former, we recommend surgery within 24-48 h a...

The overall incidence of anencephaly and spina bifida (ASB) in 69,056 pregnancies was 4.7/1000 births. ASB was more common (8.4/1000 births) among children of mothers who had had two or more abortions, but the increased risk was confined to spina bifida. A history of abortion was more common in older women and women of higher parity, but this was not matched by a similar increase in the inciden...

One of the most remarkable successes of epidemiology was the demonstration in the late twentieth century that spina bifida and anencephaly-two of the most common and severe birth defects-are caused primarily by folate deficiency. This article reviews the descriptive epidemiological studies that began when we did not have a clue about etiology. The paper tells the success story of the trials tha...

The families of 207 index patients treated for spinal dysraphism at The Hospital for Sick Children were studied to discover whether the condition was aetiologically related to the classical neural tube malformation--spina bifida cystica and anencephaly. The index patients had all had a tethered conus medullaris and one or more of a variety of anomalies of the spinal cord, vertebrae, or skin ove...

The health care needs of children with spina bifida are complex. They need specialists, generalists, and an integrated system to deliver this complex care and to align and inform all the providers. Most research in spina bifida has been focused on narrow medical outcomes; it has been noncollaborative, based on small samples of convenience, with no comparison groups, and without consistent stand...

The aim of this study was to determine whether open lumbosacral spina bifida results from an abnormality of neural folding (primary neurulation) or medullary cord canalisation (secondary neurulation). Homozygous curly tail (ct) mouse embryos were studied as a model system for human neural tube defects. The rostral end of the spina bifida was found to lie at the level of somites 27 to 32 in over...

BACKGROUND Spina bifida is a complex neuroembryological disorder resulting from incomplete closure of the posterior neural tube. Morbidity in the different fields of motor and cognitive neurodevelopment is variable in nature and severity, and often hard to predict. AIMS The current study investigates the relationship between cognitive functioning, fine motor performance and motor quality in c...

The results of the British Medical Research Council's randomized controlled trial proved that folic acid can prevent spina bifida and anencephaly. The trial provided critical scientific data upon which to base public health policy for preventing folic acid-preventable spina bifida and anencephaly. Within weeks of publication of the results, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the ...