What is a craniosynostosis?
A craniosynostosis represents premature closure of a suture of the skull. This premature closure results in cessation of growth of the skull perpendicular to the suture line and abnormal compensatory growth along the axis of the closed suture.
For this reason, sagittal craniosynostosis results in an elongated skull in the anteroposterior dimension (scaphocephaly).
Plagiocephaly results from premature closure of one coronal suture, resulting in abnormal bulging on the opposite forehead. Premature closure of the metopic suture results in trigonocephaly, which appears as a triangular keel-shaped forehead.
Cloverleaf skull (kleeblattschädel) results from premature closure of the coronal, lambdoid, and posterior sagittal sutures, with bulging of the vertex of the brain through the squamosal, anterior sagittal, and metopic sutures.
