Spina Bifida occulta usually presents with some cutaneous stigmata e.g. hair patch, sinus, lipoma, hyperpigmented skin and very rarely a congenital tail. A congenital tail may and may not be associated with spina bifida occulta and tethered cord. A four month old male child presented with congenital tail which was associated with spinal dysraphism and caused tethering of the cord itself. The ta...

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...

We compared individual trait variability in 65 male and 81 female patients with spina bifida occulta (SBO) or spina bifida aperta (SBA) against 170 male and 200 female subjects randomly selected Serbian subjects without these conditions. Variability was evaluated by direct observation of 15 homozygous recessive traits (HRT), while gender was evaluated separately. Individual trait variations bet...

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...