Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Eastern Journal of Medicine, cilt.28, sa.2, ss.320-324, 2023 (Scopus)
Intracranial arachnoid cysts are benign, non-genetic cavities that contain cerebrospinal fluid -like sterile secretions surrounded by an arachnoid membrane. In this study, 190 patients younger than 18 years of age who applied to the pediatric neurology clinic, underwent neuroimaging for different indications and were found to have arachnoid cysts were retrospectively analyzed. It was planned to examine various clinical evaluations such as demographic characteristics of the patients, complaints at presentation, physical examination findings, additional anomalies or diseases accompanying the arachnoid cyst, the location of the arachnoid cyst and/or cysts in the cranium, imaging data including the location of the cysts, and the treatments applied. 132 (69.4%) of the patients were male and the mean age at presentation was 8 (4±11.2). The complaints of the patients were seizure (23.6%), headache (23.1%), neuromotor growth retardation (18.4%) and various reasons (34.2%), respectively. In the neurological examination, findings such as neu rocutaneous skin finding, localised neurologic deficit, ataxia, altered consciousness, hypotonia, and macro/microcephaly were found in 40 (21%) patients, respectively. Arachnoid cysts were located in the middle fossa in 93 (48.9%) patients, in the posterior fossa in 83 (43.6%) patients, in the anterior fossa in 24 (12.6%) patients, and in the spinal region in 1 (0.5%) patient. Arachnoid cysts were found in the right hemisphere in 94 (49.4%) patients, in the left hemisphere in 82 (43.1%) patients, and bilate ral in 14 (7.3%) patients. There was no change in cyst size and localization in 39 of the patients who underwent control brain MRI, and a decrease of 0.5 cm (0.2±0.8 cm) in cyst size was detected in 13 patients. Surgical treatment was applied to two of the patients with arachnoid cysts. In conclusion, there are no widely accepted treatment principles for arachnoid cysts. Fundamentally, due to the benign nature of these lesions, the lack of a common consensus on the approach to arachnoid cysts complicates th e current situation. It was determined that most of the cases did not require treatment. Knowing the clinical features of cysts is important to prevent unnecessary tests and treatments. However, it should not be forgotten that close follow -up of possible risky cases is necessary. In addition, radiological follow-up of cyst sizes of AC patients, as well as neuropsychiatric evaluations, are recommended to be considered in future studies.