Intracranial infantile hemangioma - rare entity and common pitfalls: A comprehensive multidisciplinary approach from Neurosurgery, Neurooncology and Neuropathology.

Objective: To review the rare entity of pediatric intracranial hemangiomas and discuss surgical pitfalls and pathophysiology in regard to cerebral edema formation.

Materials And Methods: We describe an extremely rare case of intracranial infantile hemangioma in a neonate with massive cerebral edema, surgically resected urgently because of acute herniation. We review the literature of 46 other pediatric cases of intracranial hemangioma, including congenital capillary hemangiomas.

New surgical paradigm for open neural tube defects.

Introduction: An open neural tube defect (ONTD) features an exposed, unclosed neural plate in the form of an expanded, flat, and frequently hefty neural placode. Traditional philosophy of ONTD repair aims at preserving function at any cost, which often means stuffing the entire thick and unwieldy but non-functional placode into a tight dural sac, increasing the likelihood of future tethering of the spinal cord. The same philosophy of attempting to save the whole perimetry of the placode also sometimes leads to inadvertent inclusion of parts of the squamous epithelial membrane surrounding the placode into the reconstructed product, only to form inclusion dermoid cyst causing further injury to the neural tissues.

Unjoined primary and secondary neural tubes: junctional neural tube defect, a new form of spinal dysraphism caused by disturbance of junctional neurulation.

Introduction: Primary and secondary neurulation are the two known processes that form the central neuraxis of vertebrates. Human phenotypes of neural tube defects (NTDs) mostly fall into two corresponding categories consistent with the two types of developmental sequence: primary NTD features an open skin defect, an exposed, unclosed neural plate (hence an open neural tube defect, or ONTD), and an unformed or poorly formed secondary neural tube, and secondary NTD with no skin abnormality (hence a closed NTD) and a malformed conus caudal to a well-developed primary neural tube.

Methods And Results: We encountered three cases of a previously unrecorded form of spinal dysraphism in which the primary and secondary neural tubes are individually formed but are physically separated far apart and functionally disconnected from each other.