Congratulations to Dr. Abhaya Kulkarni and the rest of the HCRN investigators for their publication in the March issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics. This study examined failure rates of commonly performed surgical procedures to treat hydrocephalus: shunt, endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV), and ETV plus choroid plexus cauterization (ETV+CPC).
- Shunt: A device is implanted in the head to
drain fluid out of the ventricles to be re-absorbed
elsewhere in the body. - Endoscopic third ventriculostomy: A hole is made in
the floor of the third ventricle to allow fluid to
flow through. No medical device is left in the head. - ETV plus choroid plexus cauterization: ETV is
performed as well as cauterization of the lining of
of the ventricles that produce cerebrospinal
fluid in order to reduce CSF production.
This large cohort study from HCRN centers across North America indicates that ETV+CPC has a higher failure rate than shunt (the child needed additional treatment for their hydrocephalus sooner), but that within the ETV+CPC group, greater extent of CPC was associated with treatment success. You can read the original article for free courtesy of the Journal of Neurosurgery.
