Hydrocephalic children presenting to a Malaysian community-based university hospital over an 8-year period

There are few local statistics on the incidence of hydrocephalus and the ou tcome of hydrocephalic shunts in the South East Asian region. We report a r etrospective study on 285 hydrocephalic patients who underwent shunting pro cedures between 1990 and 1998 at the University Hospital Science Malaysia, a regional referral center. Multiple logistic regression analysis was appli ed to predict determinants of outcome in relation to the timing of diagnosi s, other congenital abnormalities associated with the hydrocephalus, timing of surgery and cortical thickness from CT scan. The relationship of shunt infection was correlated to the age of the patient and surgical procedure. The predictors for developmental outcome reported by this study were age at diagnosis, type of brain abnormalities and gender. Time of operation and c ortical thickness did not contribute to the outcome. Copyright (C) 2001 S.K arger AG, Basel.