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Macrocrania

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Symptoms and Signs in Pediatric Surgery

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Abstract

This presenting sign is easy to recognize if the head is too large in relation to the face or to the remaining body with the naked eye #. More often, measurement of the head circumference demonstrates a value above the normal range, too high in relation to the body length, or that exceeds one percentile after the other on follow-up #.

Because head circumference is measured in the fronto-occipital plane, it may be an indication of a too large skull volume, as the normal values have been obtained from a mean population of different age that show a slightly longitudinal-oval shape.

In children with dolicho- or brachycephaly, the measured values fall often into the upper or lower percentiles for geometric reasons and may therefore simulate a relative macrocrania or microcephalia, for example, in craniosynostoses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatric Surgery Inselspital, University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland

    Prof. em. Georges L. Kaiser

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  1. Prof. em. Georges L. Kaiser
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Kaiser, G.L. (2012). Macrocrania. In: Symptoms and Signs in Pediatric Surgery. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31161-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31161-1_2

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