H.O. Mertz

Spina Bifida Occulta: Its Relation to Dilatations of the Upper Urinary Tract and Urinary Infections in Childhood

OPINION as to the clinical importance of lumbar and sacral spina bifida occulta are various and contradictory. Pybus (1) considers this the mildest form of spina bifida, and that it is usually symptomless. West (2), in his work in the Army, thinks that in the ordinary routine case of incontinence of urine in the adult, the condition of spina bifida occulta should be ignored, while Peritz (3) states that 68 per cent of adults and 55 per cent of children with enuresis have spina bifida occulta. Wheeler (4), in one thousand X-ray films of the lumbar region in white adults, found imperfect closure of the posterior vertebral arches in the last lumbar present in 2.3 per cent. Roederer and Lagrot (5) found the deformity of the first sacral posterior lamina in 9.9 per cent of one hundred cases in adults, and determined that one-third of one thousand instances where the bones were examined showed lumbosacral spina bifida occulta, and in one-fifth of this thousand cases it was the first sacral which was involved. S...

Spina Bifida Occulta

OPINION as to the clinical importance of lumbar and sacral spina bifida occulta are various and contradictory. Pybus (1) considers this the mildest form of spina bifida, and that it is usually symptomless. West (2), in his work in the Army, thinks that in the ordinary routine case of incontinence of urine in the adult, the condition of spina bifida occulta should be ignored, while Peritz (3) states that 68 per cent of adults and 55 per cent of children with enuresis have spina bifida occulta. Wheeler (4), in one thousand X-ray films of the lumbar region in white adults, found imperfect closure of the posterior vertebral arches in the last lumbar present in 2.3 per cent. Roederer and Lagrot (5) found the deformity of the first sacral posterior lamina in 9.9 per cent of one hundred cases in adults, and determined that one-third of one thousand instances where the bones were examined showed lumbosacral spina bifida occulta, and in one-fifth of this thousand cases it was the first sacral which was involved. S...

Spina Bifida Occulta1

OPINION as to the clinical importance of lumbar and sacral spina bifida occulta are various and contradictory. Pybus (1) considers this the mildest form of spina bifida, and that it is usually symptomless. West (2), in his work in the Army, thinks that in the ordinary routine case of incontinence of urine in the adult, the condition of spina bifida occulta should be ignored, while Peritz (3) states that 68 per cent of adults and 55 per cent of children with enuresis have spina bifida occulta. Wheeler (4), in one thousand X-ray films of the lumbar region in white adults, found imperfect closure of the posterior vertebral arches in the last lumbar present in 2.3 per cent. Roederer and Lagrot (5) found the deformity of the first sacral posterior lamina in 9.9 per cent of one hundred cases in adults, and determined that one-third of one thousand instances where the bones were examined showed lumbosacral spina bifida occulta, and in one-fifth of this thousand cases it was the first sacral which was involved. S...