signs of spina bifida - Spina bifida, Sos late diagnosis. How to recognize the first signs of the malformation

Spina bifida, Sos late diagnosis. How to recognize the first signs of the malformation


The spina bifida and the importance of an early diagnosis to significantly reduce the disabling effects. This is the theme at the center of the conference organized by the Fondazione Carlo Besta Neurological Institute in Milan with the Lombardy Region, scheduled for Monday, October 22, from 8, in the Sala dei 500 of Palazzo Lombardia. The experts will explain how to recognize the first signs of the malformation, so as to guarantee the targeted children the most timely treatment possible. In fact, in most cases the diagnosis is not sufficiently early. The occipital spina bifida - recalls a note from the Milanese Irccs - is a rare malformation affecting the marrow, often in its most caudal trait, whose disabling effects, thanks to a timely diagnosis and an equally timely surgical intervention, may however they are strongly limited and circumscribed. The experience gained at the Besta, unfortunately, teaches that this does not always happen. "In over 170 cases treated in the Institute - explains the neurosurgeon Laura Valentini - the average age at surgery was around 10 years. There is therefore a need for greater awareness around this pathology, first of all by pediatricians, and for this reason the Foundation and the Lombardy Region have thought about this event which will see the participation of the world's leading experts of this malformation. of fat, perhaps with an angioma and a blind hole, just above the intergluteal fissure; or a stalk or maybe a light and hollow spot, like a cigarette burn. These are the small signs that must sound the alarm bell ", warns the neurosurgeon. "Our babies are perfect at birth, they kick like everyone else - he underlines - but then, growing up, when the marrow enters tension, the problems appear underneath: before deforming a foot, then the problems of nocturnal enuresis begin, followed by recurrent urinary infections, the progressive weakness of the calves. All this can last until adolescence, when a sudden growth leads to the precipitating of symptoms in a few months ". But a happy ending is possible, assures the expert, "on condition that the symptoms are caught at the beginning, or even prevented: just a magnetic resonance of the marrow in the little ones with those highly specific cutaneous signs, that the malformation is recognized. Today it is possible to treat it, delicately detaching, with the aid of microscopy and intraoperative monitoring, the nervous tissue from the subcutis and recreating a new large dural sac, which protects it and allows it to grow separate from the other tissues, as it must be