Abstract:
The aim of the following study was to measure the cranial volume and correlate with the common pathologies that influencing their dimension such as brain ventricle volume and cranial volume. The study taking a sample of 150 patients referred to hospital for CT imaging version (GE - bright speed 16 slice - 2002). And according to basic protocol, spiral scanning with equal slice thickness and interval space, patient without contrast media, supine position, head first, orbito-metal line as anatomical reference, radiographic base line (RBL) perpendicular to couch, and the reconstruction of images have been carried out according to organ of interest for diagnosis or for research requirement (spiral CT) to avoid the overlapping of organ of interest between slices or missing area. Then the images have to be sending to picture archiving and communication system (pacs). The volumes of brain ventricles for the patients have been obtained from multiplication of slice thickness and the area of each ventricle then a summation done to obtain the total brain ventricle volume. While for the cranial volume, the measurement taken from maximum bi-parietal distance (width), from base of skull to the highest point of vertex (Pregma) (Manjunath, 2002) (height) and from glabella to inion (longitudinal) have been used to determine the cranial volume.
The obtained results revealed that: the incidence of pathologies that influencing the brain ventricle volumes and cranial volume was higher among male with 62% relative to 38% among female. And the common pathology that influences the cranial and brain volume was the hydrocephalus taking a percent of 38.2%, mixed (hydrocephalus and tumor) taking a percent of 22.7% and the tumors was representing 16.4%. in relation to age groups, the pathologies that increase the cranial and brain ventricle volume have been peaking on age groups 1-10 years old which representing (40%) then decreasing following aging and reaching 6% among age groups of 33-43 years old then again peaking among age groups of 55-65 years old. The age also has influenced the ventricles volume and cranial volume in mm in a form of linear proportional equation: y=707.7x+12127 and y=18352x+3E6 respectively, where x refers to age in years and y refers volume of ventricle and cranial in mm3. While the relation between ventricle volumes and cranial volumes were fitted to the following equation: y=5.56x+3E6, where x refers to ventricle volume and y refers to cranial volume in mm3. In relation between cranial volumes with age among both gender, the study showed that: the cranial volume increases by aging among male and female up to 21-30 years old, then became steady and semi constant after, and the general cranial volume of male was greater than that of female as 3191658± StD114044.7 mm3 among male and 3133038± StD124883.53 among female in average. While the relation between the ventricle volumes and age groups for both genders, revealed that: the brain ventricles volume increase with aging among both genders, in a relation that could be fitted in the following form: y=5.97x+20.75 among male and as: y=5.61x+13.48 among female, where x refers to age in years and y refers to ventricle volume in cm3. The correlation so significant at R2 = 0.8, and the ventricles volumes of male appear greater than in female i.e. 50.6± STD17.9 for male and 41.5± STD17.3 for female.
The ratio of ventricle\cranial volumes have been influenced by cranial pathologies, leading to increment of ventricular\cranial ration as follows: for mixed i.e. (tumor\hydrocephalus) representing 0.04, hydrocephalus 0.03, for tumor was 0.02 relative to normal case which was 0.01.