Craniosynostosis is a condition where the skull plates fuse too quickly, resulting in an unusual head shape. Coronal craniosynostosis affects the sutures between the ears and top of the head, and can cause high pressure within the skull. Surgery can help reduce pressure and improve appearance.
When a baby is born with problems fusing the cranial plates, they have a condition called craniosynostosis. Normally, a baby is born with a skull that hasn’t closed completely at birth, but in some cases the skull plates have abnormally closed quickly. Children with this condition may have markedly unusual face or head shapes, but mild cases may show little symptoms. Four main types of craniosynostosis are possible; coronal craniosynostosis is the second most common, and the different conditions are divided by how the skull has fused.
In the womb, a baby grows in size and completes the growth of various parts of the body. The skull gives support to the head and face and also protects the brain from accidental injury. It first appears as separate bony plates, which eventually unite to give a normal closed skull. However, two main problems can arise during the child’s development that can give rise to craniosynostosis.
Individual plates can fuse together earlier than usual during pregnancy, potentially causing the baby’s skull to be smaller in that area than normal. As the bony plates continue to grow, despite closing the gap between them, new bone can develop into ridges. Another possible cause of craniosynostosis, which typically affects the entire head, is that the brain is not growing at its normal rate. The pressure of the brain growing larger under the cranial plates helps drive bone growth and fusion, and if the brain is not as large as normal, the plates can grow abnormally.
Each space between the plates in the skull is called a suture, and different types of craniosynostosis are described by the specific sutures they affect. The most common example is sagittal synostosis, which shows abnormal closure of the suture that runs along the crown of the head from the forehead to the back of the head. If a child has coronal craniosynostosis, then he or she has problems with the sutures that form a line between the ears and the top of the head. Less common is a synostosis of the suture that runs from the child’s nose to the top of the forehead, and the least common craniosynostosis affects the suture that passes horizontally across the back of the child’s head.
Coronal craniosynostosis can affect one side of the child’s head or both sides. If only one side has a problem, then your child may have a flat forehead on that side only, along with an abnormally high eye socket. His nose may also be cocked to one side. If both coronal sutures are involved in the condition, the child usually has both eye sockets higher than usual and a flattening of the entire forehead.
Medical problems that can arise with coronal craniosynostosis include abnormally high pressure within the skull itself. The operations can help reduce the pressure and can also help give the baby’s skull a more normal appearance. Children with coronal craniosynostosis may also have developmental problems related to the brain, but this does not affect all children with the condition. Some cases are due to genetic mutations, but others appear to happen randomly.
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