Nonshaved cranial surgery in black Africans: technical report and a medium-term prospective outcome study.
Nonshaved neurosurgery, cranial or spinal, is well reported among Caucasians but hardly among native Africans. The ungroomed scalp hairs of black Africans have unique anthropological characteristics needing special attention for shaveless cranial surgery. A technical report of the execution of this surgical procedure among an indigenous patient population in a sub-Sahara African country is presented, as well as an outcome analysis in a prospective cohort over a 7-year period. A total of 303 patients (211 males, 70 %) fulfilled the criteria for this study. The surgical procedure was primary in 278 (92 %) and redo in 8 %. It was emergency surgery in 153 (51 %). They were trauma craniotomies or decompressive craniectomies in 95 cases (31 %), craniotomies for tumour resections in 86 (28 %), and the surgical dissections for other conditions in 122 (41 %). The duration of surgery ranged from 30 min to 8.5 h, mean 2.5 (SD, 1.6), median 2. In-hospital clinical outcome was good (normal status or moderate deficit on dichotomized Glasgow outcome scale (GOS)) in 273 (90.1 %) cases while surgical site infections occurred in only 10 cases (3.3 %). The type of surgery, redo or primary, did not have any significant association with the in-hospital outcome (p = 0.5), nor with the presence of surgical site infection (SSI) (p = 0.7). The length of follow-up ranged from 2 to 63 months (mean, 7) with no untoward complications reported so far. Medium-term outcome of nonshaved neurosurgery in this indigenous black Africans remains favourable with no attendant significant adverse after-effects.
['Adeleye|Amos O|AO|']
D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D044383:Blacks D002648:Child D002675:Child, Preschool D056424:Decompressive Craniectomy D005260:Female D023261:Glasgow Outcome Scale D006801:Humans D007223:Infant D007231:Infant, Newborn D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D019635:Neurosurgical Procedures D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care D011446:Prospective Studies D012535:Scalp D013530:Surgical Wound Infection D055815:Young Adult
Technical report Prospective outcome study Nonshaved neurosurgery Shaveless cranial surgery Native black Africans