Pathophysiology of Infantile Hydrocephalus: Studies with Multivariate Analysis

Abstract

We investigated factors relating to intellectual outcome in 21 patients with infantile hydrocephalus. Every patient had received V-P shunt operation before, and was followed up for at least one year. The intellectual development was evaluated with multivariate analysis, and was found to be contributed independently by etiology of hydrocephalus, age at onset, association of epilepsy, and shunt troubles. Thus, those with congenital hydrocephalus, onset after the neonatal period, epilepsy or shunt troubles were related to poor intelligence, while those with acquired hydrocephalus, onset during the neonatal period, and without epilepsy were related to favorable outcome. Among the patients, early onset was correlated with early surgical intervention, which also may have been a determining factor.
We also conducted multivariate analysis with the results of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) and visual evoked potentials (VEPs) as objective variables. For both SEPs and VEPs, etiology was considered to be the most important, but other factors also contributed considerably, including CT scan findings, current developmental status, and association of congenital anomalies and epilepsy. Clinical pictures of patients with infantile hydrocephalus apparently are very complicated, being determined by multiple factors, but these cerebral evoked potentials are thought to be useful in the evaluation and follow-up of the patients with infantile hydrocephalus.