OBJECTIVE: To establish a correlation between clinical features in a group of children with tomographic diagnosis of schizencephaly and clefts extent and localization. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Retrospective study of dossiers from the archives of Neurology and Medical Genetics Services at Instituto Fernandes Figueira/Fiocruz and Hospital Municipal Jesus, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, in the period between 2000 and 2003. The study included 16 patients, nine female and seven male, with tomographic diagnosis of schizencephaly investigated for clinical findings, psychomotor development, motor/cognitive deficits and epilepsy. RESULTS: Predominance of bilateral clefts in 10:16 patients, open-lip schizencephaly type in 23:27 patients, and small lips in 11:27 patients. As regards anomalies associated with schizencephaly, pellucid septum absence was the most frequent one (10:16 patients). As regards clinical findings, 15 patients presented with developmental delay and motor deficit, six patients with cognitive deficit and ten with epilepsy. In three patients, we observed discordant clinical findings and cleft sizes, although the clefts were small, the clinical features severity was high because of other cerebral anomalies. CONCLUSION: The clinical features of schizencephaly are related to the size of the clefts, regardless laterality, presenting higher severity when associated with other cerebral anomalies.

Keywords: Schizencephaly, Computed tomography, Clinical findings