Wind instruments and headaches.

The authors illustrate the cases of two children with headaches, one diagnosed with Chiari type 1 malformation and the other with hydrocephalus, who played wind instruments. Both patients manifested that their headaches worsened with the efforts made during playing their musical instruments. We briefly comment on the probable role played by this activity on the patients' intracranial pressure and hypothesize that the headaches might be influenced by increases in their intracranial pressure related to Valsalva maneuvers.

[Coccygeal dermal sinus: Clinical relevance and management].

Introduction: The presence of a dermal sinus on a child's back is a common cause for paediatric neurosurgical consultation. The relative frequency of these lesions and fears on their possible clinical consequences enhances the importance of early diagnosis and treatment. With this work we aimed to search for the most relevant clinical features that might indicate an intradural penetration of the lesions and that may advise performing neuroimaging studies and a paediatric neurosurgical consultation.

Craniosynostosis in Kabuki syndrome.

Niikawa-Kuroki, or Kabuki syndrome (KS), is characterized by distinctive facial features, skeletal anomalies, persisting fingertip pads with dermatoglyphic abnormalities, short stature, and mental retardation. Neurological manifestations and CNS anomalies have been described in some patients with this condition. However, craniosynostosis has been documented in only 4 patients with KS who did not undergo operations.

Syringomyelia with quadriparesis in CSF shunt malfunction: a case illustration.

Background: Shunt malfunction typically presents with headaches, vomiting, and impaired consciousness. Paraparesis has been rarely reported as the initial manifestation of valve dysfunction.

Case Illustration: A 17-year-old boy was admitted with invalidating quadriparesis that after neuroimaging evaluation was found to be produced by communicating syringomyelia attributed to shunt malfunction.

[Usefulness of hyperbaric oxygen in the treatment of radionecrosis and symptomatic brain edema after LINAC radiosurgery].

Radionecrosis with brain edema is a complication of radiosurgery. Three female patients harbouring a frontal pole, petrous and parasagital parietoocipital meningiomas respectively who had been treated with LINAC radiosurgery are presented. Those patients developed, between two and eight months later, a severe symptomatic radionecrosis with a huge brain edema resistant to the usual steroid therapy.