Effectiveness Of Cranial Expansion To Treat Microcephalic Pediatric Patients With Socio-emotional Abnormality

[Objective]The aim of this paper was to evaluate the improvement of socio-emotional abnormality in pediatric patients with microcephaly[Methods]The author conducted a retrospective study in cases with diagnosis of microcephaly and progressive beaten cooper signs in a serial of skull X-ray study,which underwent cranial expansion in Shanghai Children's Hospital since June 2014 to May 2017,with regard to socio-emotional abnormality and neurodevelopment[Results]Nine boys and five girls were included in our study.Median age at the time of surgery in these cases was 16(12-23)months.Among 14 microcephalic cases in our study,11 cases showed pronounced improvement in all of these 4 domains,and 3 cases improved in 3 domains at 12 months post-OP.While compared with those scores in domains of internalizing behavior and dysregulation behavior pre-operatively,scores were significantly better 12 months post-OP with p<0.01.Major improvement was observed in domain of externalizing behavior with p<0.05 Neurodevelopmental questionnaire shows that compared with results pre-operatively,9 cases were reported improvement in all of these 3 sections of the questionnaire,4 concluded partially upgraded in 1 or 2 sections There were no surgical complications in 14 cases of postoperative cranial expansion surgery,and the head circumference of our cases in the current study showed an increase trend[Conclusions]For those children younger than 2 years of age with microcephaly who have persistent socio-emotional abnormalities and progressive beaten copper signs in a serial of skull X-ray imaging study,timely cranial expansion can effectively improve abnormal socio-emotion and may further improve neurodevelopment of these cases.