On early surgery of hydrocephalus in low-birth-weight infants.

The paper weighs the indication and the timing of surgery in hydrocephalus mostly due to ventricular haemorrhage in premature infants with an average of 31 weeks of gestational age and of 1.409 g average birth weight. The authors suggest to wait with the intervention until the intraventricular haemorrhage has subsided because the hypertension may often cease when the CSF is not bloody anymore. In case of a progressive process they gained favourable results with early surgery. They give a detailed account about the choice of the various shunts, list eventual complications, the US and CT controls.