Children with large heads: a practical approach to diagnosis in 557 children, with special reference to 109 children with megalencephaly.
Among 557 children who presented a diagnostic problem of a large head, 109 had megalencephaly as the primary diagnosis. A clinical approach to the differentiation of this numerically important group from the various other causes of large head is outlined. The group is characterised by a familial incidence of large head in at least 50 per cent of cases; a male to female preponderance of four to one; an above-normal rate of head growth in 80 per cent of the children in the first four months after birth, and in a further 12 per cent in late infancy. The vast majority of these children were normal. Only seven children were retarded, and they also had a variety of neurological and other somatic abnormalities.
D001724:Birth Weight; D001827:Body Height; D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002508:Cephalometry; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006257:Head / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D009421:Nervous System Malformations; D012886:Skull / Q000002:abnormalities