Caudal Anesthesia in a Neonate with Dandy-Walker Syndrome

Dandy-Walker Syndrome (DWS) is an intrauterine developmental anomaly, which consists of 4-12% of all infants having hydrocephalus its prevalence is 1/30000 in all live births [1,2]. Cranio-facial anomalies such as cleft lip and palate, micrognathia and hypertelorism, together with cardiac and renal anomalies, limb anomalies (syndactyly, polydactyly, etc.) and vertebral anomalies can all be detected in patients with DWS. They may have to undergo a single operation or a series of operations during their childhood period, related to these anomalies. Additionally, these patients may present with features of a difficult airway, together with neurological disorders such as increased intracranial pressure and brain stem dysfunction. All of these situations create numerous serious challenges to the anesthesiologist [3,4]. We were unable to meet any report published in the literature, related to the anesthetic management of patients with DWS until now. We aimed to present our anesthetic management, in a newborn male patient with Dandy-Walker Syndrome, in whom we used caudal block for umbilical cord hernia repair.