Background: The mental prognosis of scaphocephaly remains a controversial issue, and surgery is performed for functional or aesthetical reasons without clear evidence in the literature of which is the most important.
Patients and methods: Three hundred and ninety six children with scaphocephaly were prospectively studied to analyse the correlation between age, intracranial pressure (ICP) and mental outcome. Before any treatment, the intracranial pressure was recorded (systematically during the first period of the study); the mental level was evaluated at first consultation and after a mean five-year follow-up. The mental evolution was compared whether the child was operated or not.
Results: The mental outcome of the patients was good in most of the cases whether or not they had been operated. There were significantly more normal patients in the scaphocephalies seen before one year of age at first consultation (P < 0.001) than in those seen after one year of age. There were significantly more abnormally high intracranial pressure cases in the group of patients who were seen later than one year of age (P = 0.0015). There were more retarded patients in the group with increased ICP, but the difference was not significant (P = 0.17). There was no correlations between ICP and final IQ neither in operated nor in non-operated patients. Conversely, a correlation was found between the early and late psychometric assessments in all patients.
Conclusions: The main predictive factor of mental outcome appears to be the initial developmental level. Since the mental level was worse in the older children, and since the surgery does not influence the functional outcome when the initial mental level is low, we can conclude that the indication to perform surgery in scaphocephaly is sometimes not only a cosmetic problem.