Growing fractures of the orbital roof. A report of two cases and a review.

Growing fractures rarely arise in the skull base. Only six cases of orbital roof growing fractures were found in the relevant literature. We report two such cases. The first case was a 2-year-old girl who had progressive proptosis for 6 months following a mild head injury 1 year previously. The second case was a 9-year-old girl with a history of injury at the age of 3 months. She developed eye deviation and proptosis for 1 year. Computed tomography scan is excellent for demonstrating bony defects in the orbital roof, while magnetic resonance imaging is more sensitive in showing the intraorbital extension of a leptomeningeal cyst. Both patients were operated successfully and proptosis disappeared postoperatively. The exact pathophysiology of growing fractures is still debated in the literature, but a dural laceration along a fracture line is noted in all cases, and frontobasal brain injury seems to play an important role in the pathogenesis of the fracture growth. Growing fractures of the orbital roof should be suspected if ocular symptoms appear in a child who had sustained a head injury several months or years before. Copyright 2002 S. Karger AG, Basel