Evaluation of Physiological Intracranial Calcifications in Children Using Computed Tomography

Physiological intracranial calcifications have an increasing prevalence with the age and can be found in both children and in adults. These calcifications are basically asymptomatic and their presence can only be noticed through neuro-imaging. The aim of the paper was to evaluate physiological intracranial calcifications in children using computed tomography, in our conditions. The study was designed as a retrospective, observational, nonrandomized clinical study. It was conducted at the Department of Radiology, Clinical Center Kragujevac, Serbia. The study included all the patients scanned by CT from 1st October, 2008. to 30th September, 2018.. The criteria for the inclusion were: the patients aged up to 18 years who underwent a non-contrast computed tomography in the observed period, with diagnosed intracranial calcifications that do not have pathological etiology. Our study included 420 patients. Out of them, 213 (50.7%) were boys and 207 (49.3%) were girls. The mean age was 12.47. We divided the patients into two age categories: the first one included the patients aged 1 to 10 years and the other one included the patients aged 11 to 18 years. Our study has demonstrated that physiological intracranial calcifications are the most frequent in habenula (28.1%), followed by the pineal gland (22.6%) and choroid plexus (18.8%). There is a small number of studies with the subject of physiological intracranial calcification distribution, especially in children. It is important to know in which locations we can expect physiological intracranial calcifications, as well as the age in which they become detectable by imaging, in order not to mix them with hemorrhages, pathological tumor or metabolic mineralization.