Following pial synangiosis, the majority of pediatric patients with moyamoya syndrome stop having strokes and TIAs, and they appear to experience an excellent long-term prognosis.

Clinically apparent cerebral edema is a rare and often fatal complication of diabetic ketoacidosis. To determine whether subclinical brain swelling occurs more commonly, we obtained cranial CT scans in six children with diabetic ketoacidosis treated with fluid resuscitation and continuous low-dose insulin therapy. Control scans were obtained before hospital discharge. Compared with the scans during convalescence, the early scans of all six children showed a narrowing of the brain's ventricular system, compatible with brain swelling. Average changes in diameter were 1.3 +/- 0.1 mm for the third ventricle and 3.7 +/- 0.8 mm for the lateral ventricles (P less than 0.01). In addition, a narrowing of the subarachnoid spaces was subjectively noted during a blind reading of the early scans. Although no single scan was overtly indicative of cerebral edema, the data suggest that subclinical brain swelling may be a common occurrence during treatment of diabetic ketoacidosis in children. Sequential CT scans of the brain may provide a means of evaluating modifications of standard therapy aimed at preventing cerebral edema.

For patients with intractable seizures, the best surgical outcome is achieved following precise localization of the seizure focus. Scalp EEG monitoring may be insufficient and chronic subdural invasive EEG monitoring has therefore been advocated. At Children’s Hospital in Boston, 31 children had chronic subdural monitoring from January 1990 through June 1994. The average age at implantation was 11 years. Most patients (22) had placement of grid electrodes combined with strip electrodes to map temporal and/or frontal regions bilaterally. Twenty of the patients eventually had a resective procedure based on the findings. During monitoring, cortical stimulations were performed to localize speech and somatosensory areas. There was only one complication, a subdural hematoma in a patient who had had previous surgery. Chronic subdural EEG monitoring is helpful in precisely localizing seizure foci in pediatric patients; it also allows motor and speech mapping and appears to be a safe modality in children.

Hypercoagulability in postoperative neurosurgical patients has been demonstrated in the adult population, but few studies have dealt with the pediatric population. We found that children undergoing craniotomy for focal resection, lobectomy, and hemispherectomy are hypercoagulable as detected by thrombelastograph coagulation analysis. Further studies are needed to determine whether this is clinically significant.