Members
Mweushi Mphande MBBS
Position: Dr UNIVERSITY TEACHING HOSPITAL
Areas of Interest: Acquired
Country: Zambia
Email: drmmphande@gmail.com
Areas of Interest: Acquired
Research focus:
Post infectious Hydrocephalus makes up for over 65% of Hydrocephalus cases in Zambia, with over 350 new pediatric patients a year. Over 70% of these patients are from poor backgrounds and reside in Rural and Peri-urban areas. The Majority of our patients are treated through Ventriculo -peritoneal Shunting and the cost of one shunt is about K2300 which is too much for these patients’ families to afford to buy and rely mostly on donations.
Endoscopic Third Ventriculostomy is another avenue of treatment we have tried in Zambia although more conservatively in the past 5 years due to lack of endoscopic equipment and the discovery of the ETV score that depicts a lower success rate in patients with post infectious hydrocephalus.
My current retrospective study of patients with Post-infectious Hydrocephalus treated using either VPS or ETV between 2009 and 2017 reveals a very negligible difference in the success rates between those patients who underwent an ETV and those that had a VPS inserted and therefore would be instrumental in lobbying for changes in treatment protocol and in developing a different success score for our setting.
