TY - JOUR T1 - Normal children with large heads--benign familial megalencephaly. JF - Archives of Disease in Childhood JO - Arch Dis Child SP - 512 LP - 517 DO - 10.1136/adc.54.7.512 VL - 54 IS - 7 AU - R E Day AU - W H Schutt Y1 - 1979/07/01 UR - http://adc.bmj.com/content/54/7/512.abstract N2 - Fifteen normal children with large heads (circumference greater than 0.5 cm above the 98th centile) were studied. CAT scans were pefrormed to exclude hydrocephalus, and ventricular size was compared with that of hydrocephalic children. In 11 of the 13 families in which the parents' heads were measured, one parent (10 fathers and one mother) was found to have a large head, as had 6 of 17 siblings. Head circumference at birth was large in 7 of 10 babies and rate of head growth was excessive in 8 of 13. Skull x-ray showed suture diastasis in 7 infants. These families have a benign familial megalencephaly. It is important to recognise this so as to avoid unnecessary investigation and anxiety about normal children with large heads. ER -