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Background: The definite diagnosis of hydrocephalus valve infection is generally made by cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sampling via the valve reservoir, which is considered to be more dependable than that of the CSF obtained by lumbar puncture., Case Report: We treated a 17-year-old boy with an intra-abdominal pseudocyst due to ventriculoperitoneal shunt infection caused by Staphylococcus warneri whose ventricular CSF, obtained via the valve reservoir, was repeatedly sterile thus causing a considerable delay in the management of the complication., Discussion and Conclusions: S. warneri constitutes an emergent contaminant of catheters and prostheses. We found only a detailed report of S. warneri infection of a ventriculoatrial shunt. If manifestations of peritoneal involvement in shunted patients would occur, the attention should be shifted to the distal component of the shunt hardware, even in the presence of a normal ventricular CSF as happened in our case to avoid unnecessary delay in diagnosis and management.

Background: Shunt malfunction typically presents with headaches, vomiting, and impaired consciousness. Paraparesis has been rarely reported as the initial manifestation of valve dysfunction., Case Illustration: A 17-year-old boy was admitted with invalidating quadriparesis that after neuroimaging evaluation was found to be produced by communicating syringomyelia attributed to shunt malfunction., Discussion and Conclusion: Persistence of the central canal in association with communicating hydrocephalus may lead to the development of communicating syringomyelia. In this context, insufficient drainage of CSF produced by shunt dysfunction may evolve exclusively with symptoms and signs of spinal cord involvement in the absence of the usual cerebral manifestations related to shunt failure.

Case: A 3-year-old boy underwent emergency external ventricular drainage and excision of a fourth ventricle anaplastic ependymoma. A week later, the child was given a ventriculo-peritoneal shunt. Fourteen days after shunting, the child developed a subphrenic abscess and acute cholecystitis that required surgery., Results: A Staphylococcus epidermidis was isolated both from the ventricular catheter and CSF and from the subphrenic abscess and the gallbladder. To our knowledge, this is the first report of cholecystitis evolving as a descending shunt infection. The current literature related with this unique complication is briefly reviewed.

Background: Increased intra-abdominal pressure has been reported to result in raised intracranial pressure in a variety of conditions such as obesity and pregnancy, and it also constitutes an infrequent cause of ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt malfunction. Patients with neurological deficits, as those with myelomeningocele or cerebral palsy, are prone to developing a neurogenic bowel and to suffer chronic constipation. Although previously recognized, VP shunt failure attributed to constipation has only recently been described. We briefly review the etiopathogenesis, diagnosis and management of severe constipation leading to VP shunt malfunction. Our aim is to draw the attention of pediatric neurosurgeons towards severe constipation as a possible cause of VP shunt failure thus avoiding unnecessary surgical valve revisions, to which children with hydrocephalus are often submitted to., Illustrative Cases: We report two children that developed transient VP shunt failure because of intense constipation that caused exacerbation of previously shunted hydrocephalus. One of the patients constitutes the first description of this complication associated with an anteriorly placed anus and the other with intestinal paresis after ileostomy. Conservative treatment aimed at alleviating the increased intra-abdominal pressure resulted in complete resolution of the children's manifestations of VP shunt failure, without having to resort to surgical revision of the VP shunt.

We report a patient, given a ventriculoperitoneal shunt at the neonatal period, who presented with a painless subcutaneous mass on his neck. Plain radiographs of the cervical region showed that the swelling was made up by a migrated and coiled peritoneal catheter. We briefly discuss the proposed mechanism for this complication and suggest that this occurrence must be taken into account at the time of evaluating a patient with shunt malfunction.

Ventriculoperitoneal shunting constitutes the standard procedure for draining cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in children with hydrocephalus. Ventriculoatrial and ventriculopleural shunting are alternative methods of CSF drainage, which have gained less acceptance. Ventriculopleural shunts are seldom used owing to justified fears of pneumothorax and symptomatic effusions of CSF. The addition of an antisiphon device to standard shunt systems seems to have prevented CSF pleural effusion. From 1988 to 1998, we treated each of six hydrocephalic children with a ventriculopleural shunt. In five cases we used new-technology valves designed to prevent the effects of siphoning with current differential pressure valves. Peritoneal adhesions, recent peritonitis, ascites, and obstruction of a previous ventriculoatrial shunt were the indications for pleural shunting. After a mean follow-up period of 2.5 years all shunts were functioning adequately. Only one patient showed transient symptoms of CSF overdrainage, which were corrected by up-grading the valve setting with the magnet. A late death was unrelated to the pleural shunting procedure. The use of valves of a new design designed to prevent overdrainage seems to account for the satisfactory outcomes observed in this series. We suggest that ventriculopleural shunting should be considered as the preferred alternative to peritoneal drainage in children with intra-abdominal adhesions or with a history of recent peritoneal infection.

We report the preliminary results of a prospective study in 19 patients (22 procedures) undergoing ventricular catheter replacement at the time of CSF shunt revision to determine the value of intraluminal coagulation by means of a flexible monopolar coagulating electrode in preventing ventricular hemorrhage following catheter removal. These patients had their first shunt implanted during infancy, and underwent shunt revision during the 1-year period between October 1996 and October 1997. Sixteen patients were found to have adherent ventricular catheters, that necessitated the use of diathermy for their removal. In 10 procedures electrocoagulation was applied to the stylet of the ventricular catheter thus permitting tube extraction. In the remaining 8 shunt revisions catheter removal was readily accomplished by coagulation applied to a flexible monopolar endoscopic electrode introduced into the lumen of the tube. Two patients developed mild intraventricular hemorrhage following the use of each of the two methods described above. Both coagulation techniques used during the routine withdrawal of ventricular catheters seem to be equally effective. The flexible coagulating electrode has the additional advantage over the stylet of being moldable, allowing its use in cases in which the catheter does not follow a straight course within the ventricular cavity.

Three cases of retrograde migration of the distal catheter of ventriculoperitoneal shunts into the subcutaneous fibrous tract of the thoracic wall are reported. To the authors' knowledge this is the first time that this complication of ventriculoperitoneal shunts has been described.