In myelomeningocele, there is an interruption of the pathway of bowel control via loss of the message given by pressured rectum which normally informs brain for emptying the rectum via an order from the brain to relax the external anal sphincter. but the rectum in myelomeningocele is weak and stretched losing the sensory perception mechanism which leads to accumulation of the waste in rectum pr...

Forty years ago, we learned an important lesson in the development of a child with the Myelomeningocele form of Spina Bifida: 6 to 9 year old patients with myelomeningocele did not know whether they were boys or girls. A subsequent study demonstrated that parents were embarrassed to ask whether their infant or young child could become a competent reproductive human being! This lack of informati...

OBJECTIVE Myelomeningocele is a defect that typically is repaired surgically within the first few days of life in developed countries to minimize the risk of meningitis. If left unrepaired, these children may survive to have their meningocele sac epithelialize. The surgical reduction and closure of an epithelialized myelomeningocele represents a unique challenge for the neurosurgeon because it ...

The brain and spinal cord were examined with MR imaging in 30 myelomeningocele patients 3-32 years old to study the prevalence of syringohydromyelia and Chiari malformations and to correlate these conditions with developmental scoliosis and spontaneously arrested hydrocephalus. Twelve patients had neurologic deficits above the level of the myelomeningocele and 10 had spontaneously arrested hydr...

The keystone flap, an emerging reconstructive option that can be used in many parts of the body, is gaining popularity among reconstructive surgeons. These reliable and versatile flaps can be used for large myelomeningocele closure. A modified bilateral keystone flap was used to achieve tension-free closure of a large thoracolumbar myelomeningocele associated with severe kyphosis in a newborn g...

It is with great interest that we read the paper entitled, “A rare case of giant multiseptated thoracic myelomeningocele with segmental placode” by Patnaik and Mahapatra.[4] The authors described a rare presentation of a thoracic spinal dysraphism. The child they presented had no neurological and urologic deterioration, which is very uncommon in a thoracic myelomeningocele, and the magnetic res...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this retrospective study was to clarify the relationship of shunt infection to childhood hydrocephalus etiology. METHODS We analyzed 1021 patients with childhood hydrocephalus who underwent V-P shunting over a period of approximately 15 years. The etiology of 1021 patients include myelomeningocele (794 patient), congenital (165 patient) and intraventricular haemorrhag...

Sharrard, Zachary, Lorber and Bruce (1963) in a study offorty children with spina bifida cystica, eighteen of whom survived three months, concluded that “operative closure of myelomeningocele should be regarded as a surgical emergency”. They believed that it was ethically unjustifiable to continue their controlled trial of treatment. Following this paper there was a wide acceptance of early clo...

BACKGROUND Arsenic induces neural tube defects in several animal models, but its potential to cause neural tube defects in humans is unknown. Our objective was to investigate the associations between maternal arsenic exposure, periconceptional folic acid supplementation, and risk of posterior neural tube defect (myelomeningocele) among a highly exposed population in rural Bangladesh. METHODS ...

Myelomeningocele causes serious locomotor disability, osteoporosis and pathologic fractures. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between body composition, bone mineral density, walking ability and sport activity in myelomeningocele children. 60 patients aged between 5 and 14 yrs with myelomeningocele (22 ambulatory and 38 non-ambulatory), were studied. Fat mass and fat-fre...