A pilot study of the quantitative evaluation of cerebrospinal fluid disturbance in craniosynostosis patients using voxel based morphometry.

INTRODUCTION

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow disturbance is not clear in craniosynostosis (CS). As far as we know, there are no reports that have evaluated changes in CSF flow disturbance after distraction osteogenesis. The aim of our pilot study was to examine CSF, grey matter (GM) and white matter (WM) volume ratios in CS patients before and after surgery using voxel based morphometry (VBM) in statistical parametric mapping (SPM) 12 software.

METHODS

We performed a retrospective cohort study of CS patients with distraction osteogenesis. We compared CSF, GM, and WM volume ratios between preoperative and postoperative cases. Data was analyzed using VBM in SPM 12 software. A 3 Tesla MRI machine provided 3DSPGR (spoiled gradient-recalled) sequence for all cases.

RESULTS

Between April 2017 and June 2023, we assessed 14 consecutive cases. The ratio of GM and WM volume and CSF volume in preoperative cases was significantly higher in postoperative cases (19.8% vs 15.1%, p = 0.022, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

In our pilot study CS patients had CSF flow disturbance that was alleviated by cranial distraction osteogenesis.