Encephalocele: experimental model. Morphogenesis, pathogenesis and clinical correlations discussion

RESEARCH OBJECT: This study intends to consider an encephalocele experimental model, obtained in embryonate eggs, treated in a post-neurulation phase with chemical teratogens. This study intends to point out possibility that pathogenic process, which have determined a malformation, is referable to an original defect of embryonic cranial coatings development and that neurulation defect is secondary.

Chick and duck embryonate eggs have been used. They have been inoculated in their development phase with known chemical teratogens, as Dintoina and Blue Trypan. A controlling group has been inoculated with physiological solution and, then, it has been followed till the hatching. The experimental group has been undergone to artificial hatching, according to prearranged conditions and it has been analysed during different phases of its development.

Four cranioencephalic malformations have been obtained: three cases of encephalocele and one case of exencephalia. The individual pathological compounds have been studied under the morphological and histopathological profile. The skull base dimensions have been taken and then compared with the controlling group ones.

In the light of experimental data, some considerations have been undertaken considering the pathogenetic hypothesis findable in medical literature, stressing the possibility that encephalocele may be arranged as a post-neurulation defect and that, for taxonomic aims, it has to fit in a different group within cranial disraphims.