Comment to the paper by L. May: Lack of uniformity in the clinical assessment of children with lipomyelomeningocele. A review of the literature and recommendations for the future

Excerpt

This paper by Lindy May and co-workers is a timely review of the limits currently experienced by all of us in evaluating the outcome of patients with “lipomyelomeningocele”. It is based on a meta-analysis of the literature of the last three decades carried out to research and analyze the reliability of the commonly utilized assessment tools. As expected, the series reviewed, all retrospective in nature, are too heterogeneous to be compared. Even more confusing is the inconsistencies of the definition “lipomyelomeningocele” loosely applied to a variety of malformations which differ in terms of pathogenesis, severity, and surgical difficulties. The “suggested tables” reflect the rather pessimistic conclusion that the paper has generated, that is the necessity of focusing on rather simple evaluations: yes/not, stable/improved/worsened rather than attempting to use more sophisticated and difficult to apply scales. …