[The longitudinal increase of the internal jugular vein and the upper v. cava as measured between the mastoid to the heart: parameter for timing the re-operation after ventriculocardiostomy (author's transl)].

Some time after ventriculo-cardiostomy in children with hydrocephalus the cardiac catheter is retracting out of the right atrium into the upper veins due to the increase of body length during growth. This might endanger proper functioning of the valve. Therefore most authors are in favour of a prophylactic elongation of the catheter by re-operation. In order to roughly predict the time for re-operation we measured course of the catheter in 4120 children. As a basis for long time supervision of children with this shunt operation we thus propose a curve of length increase of the blood vessels concerned, based on our data, in connection with the known curve of length increase of the body.