Surgical decompression of supratentorial arachnoid cysts in pediatric patients younger than one year.
BACKGROUND
There has been much debate about the optimal surgical management of arachnoid cysts in infants younger than 1 year of age. The authors present the clinical and neuroimaging findings in pediatric patients with supratentorial arachnoid cysts treated by surgical decompression.


METHODS
A retrospective chart review was conducted to identify all pediatric patients who had been diagnosed with arachnoid cysts since 2003. Five infants with symptomatic supratentorial arachnoid cysts underwent surgery at Kangnam St. Mary's Hospital.


RESULTS
The initial surgery in 4 patients involved a craniotomy with the excision of the cyst wall and fenestration into the basal cisterns. Three of the four patients needed additional procedures, such as cyst-peritoneal or subdural-peritoneal shunting due to failure of cyst resolution. A shunting procedure was performed as initial therapy in 1 patient who presented with increased intracranial pressure.


CONCLUSIONS
Our strategy for approaching arachnoid cysts in pediatric patients has been to diagnose and treat the cysts as early as possible and to avoid the complications of shunts whenever possible. However, open craniotomy with excision and fenestration of the cyst is associated with a relatively high failure rate in pediatric patients younger than 1 year of age with supratentorial arachnoid cysts.
Yang
Seung-Ho
SH
Department of Neurosurgery, St. Vincent's Hospital, Catholic University of Korea, Suwon, Korea.
Lee
Kwan-Sung
KS
Sung
Jae Hoon
JH
Son
Byung Chul
BC
Jeun
Sin-Soo
SS
Kang
Joon-Ki
JK
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D016080:Arachnoid Cysts / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery*; D019299:Decompression, Surgical / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D011247:Pregnancy; D011296:Prenatal Diagnosis / Q000379:methods