Twenty nine cases of pseudotumor cerebri were identified in a retrospective study of records of 205,765 children aged 2-15 years presenting between 1979 and 1994 at the IWK Grace Health Centre, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. The annual incidence of pseudotumor for the total group was 0.9 per 100,000 children; in age group 2-11 years, the incidence was 0.7, and for 12-15 years, 1.5. Females were affected nearly 3 times more frequently than males. The adolescent age group was affected twice as frequently as younger children. [1]

COMMENT. The increasing incidence of pseudotumor cerebri in later childhood and adolescence (1.5 per 100,000), noted in this study of patients admitted after 1978, was also noteworthy in earlier reports. A review of the literature before 1960 showed that 84 (37%) of 224 patients of all ages were in children and of these 75 (90%) were between 5 and 15 years of age [2]. Antecendent otitis media was reported in 29%, and mild head injury or infection other than otitis occurred in an equal proportion of the cases. The advent of antibiotics virtually abolished the cases of “otitic hydrocephalus,” and explained the increase in “idiopathic” cases in later reports. (See Progress in Pediatric Neurology III, PNB Publ, 1997;pp431-433, for articles on signs and symptoms, the MRI, and treatment of pseudotumor cerebri).