Growth Pattern and Normal Anthropometric Values of Skull Base in Korean Child

Abstract

While studying skull base in craniosynostosis, it became apparent that there is a lack of reference studies quantifying the changes of the normal skull base throughout childhood. There is a considerable amount of work published already, obtained from skull radiographs with orthognathic deformities. While this has established some growth trends during childhood, it cannot easily be used for correlative studies, due to the known reliability and reproducibility errors that apply to all studies based on plain skull radiographs. This study presents simple measurement of brain CT and analysis of 2D growth of the skull base throughout childhood, which can be used as reference for further studies of condition that affect skull base growth, such as craniofacial deformities, in oriental childhood. The landmarks of skull base were identified on brain CT scan of 120 normal korean infants and children, aged 0 month to 24 months and several distances between the various landmarks were measured in an attempt to quantify the growth of skull fossa. The results of the measurements showed that at the age of 24 months, the distances reach 90% of adult values except for the anterior cranial fossa. This fossa only reaches 78% of the adult value which means that much potential remains at this age for further growth. There are two periods of time where total growth(total cephalic length) is the fastest: 0-9 months and 16-24 months. In regards to the anterior cranial fossa, 0-12 months is the period of fastest growth. The middle fossa grows fastest between 18-24 months. The posterior fossa follows a linear pattern with a constant rate of growth. or our measurements.