Craniosynostosis Research Papers

Craniosynostosis The condition that will further be discussed pertains to infants. Therefore, the anatomy of a new born baby is what will be emphasized. When looking at a newborn’s skull, there are a few features that are quite different from an adult in order for proper growth and maturation to occur. The baby has five separate bone plates in the skull. These plates will fuse together by the current fibrous sutures connecting them. In a healthy infant, the sutures should remain flexible for adequate brain growth until around 25 months. These sutures, and fontanels, are necessary for the birthing process. Fontanels are what gives babies the “soft spot” on their skull. When the time comes, the skull bone plates will hardened and join each other
via the sutures. The metopic suture is seen only in adults, and I will later mention the other sutures found also in adults. Craniosynostosis is fairly rare within the United States. Around 10,000 cases of this disease are seen each year. If one breaks down the word craniosynostosis, we find that the word roots cranio, syn and ostosis refers to the words cranium, together and bone, respectively. The cranium is just a term referring to the skull which covers the brain. So dissecting out this term lets us instantly know that this is a bone condition of skull plates that are fusing together, probably abnormally. It is, in fact, just that. The growth plates of a baby’s skull are fusing together way too prematurely for the rest of the body’s regular growth cycle. This means that the fragile sutures that a baby has on its head are closing off too early. (Sheth et al, 2016) When craniosynostosis takes its toll, signs of the condition can appear right at birth.
The signs usually continue on to show a more intense version of craniosynostosis for a few months after birth, if not intervened by surgical procedures. Usually when you would diagnose the first stage of craniosynostosis at birth, you would see signs of a misshapen head. As the upcoming few months of life begin to set its course with this condition, one starts to see an even more prominent, oddly shaped skull. (“Craniosynostosis,” n.d.). The fontanel on top of a little baby’s head will obviously start to dissipate sooner than regular growing infants. The extremely dangerous sign is when the skull has little to none expansion during the growing process. This is of great concern because when the growth plates fuse too early like this, the brain will not be able to grow properly because the brain has no room and the skull will absolutely not expand at that certain point. The exact reason as to why these problems arise is because of the pressure within the cranium. Two developmental problems that will persist with this disease are, of course, an oddly shaped head and also multiple impacts to your vision. However, it can affect just about anything since it is disrupting your cognitive growth. Some examples are eating, sleeping and energy disorders. (Pruthi,
2017). Two types of craniosynostosis, sagittal and coronal, are both premature suture fusions.
The sagittal suture is the long suture that runs from the frontal fontanelle, or the front of the head, all the way to the occipital fontanelle, which conjoins with the lambdoid suture that runs horizontally on the back of the head. So if this suture where to fuse prematurely, the head would grow long towards the anterior and posterior portions of the body. Knowing that, if the coronal sutures that run from the frontal fontanelle to the location of the ears fuse, that means skull expansion would grow out wide to the sides of the body and keeping the top of the skull squished down. Two other types are the fusion of the lambdoid suture, which causes multiple irregular patterns of the skull, and the metopic suture, which gives a point to the anterior skull. (Pruthi,
2017). These malformations caused by this unfortunate disease can be very impactful to child’s social life, but the health and wellness of that child is of greater concern. It is very likely that the cause of this is a problematic mutation within the human genome, but it is an ongoing study. (Pruthi, 2017). As I mentioned earlier, if surgery is ignored to open the prematurely closing growth plates, the child is at risk to some terrible developmental problems.