Covering the range of pediatric spinal cord disease, its clinical assessment, appropriate investigation, its medical and neurosurgical management and neuro-rehabilitation.

Spinal cord disorders have tended to be approached as adjuncts to disorders of the paediatric brain or peripheral nervous system. This is partly a function of numbers – specifically spinal pathologies being less frequent than those of the brain and the peripheral neuromuscular system, partly a function of the relatively limited investigation techniques available before the advent of MRI and, at least to some degree, it is because the clinical evaluation of the spinal cord in young children is difficult and may be overshadowed by the manifestations of accompanying brain and peripheral neuromuscular symptomatology. It is likely that the role of the cord, in conditions ranging from neonatal neurological injury to shaken impact syndrome and in inflammatory and neurometabolic disorders and beyond, will continue to become more evident over coming years.

Readership: Pediatric neurologists; Pediatric neurosurgeons; Pediatric oncologists; Pediatric neuroradiologists and neurophysiologists; Rehabilitation physicians and therapists.

Michael Pike: Consultant Paediatric Neurologist, Children's Hospital, Oxford and Honorary Senior Lecturer, University of Oxford (June 1991 to date); Chair, Directorate of Paediatrics and Clinical Genetics, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust (Jan 2003-Dec 2005); President,  British Paediatric Neurology Association (Jan 2006-Jan 2008); Chair College Specialist Advisory Committee on Neurology, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (Jan 2006-Jan2008); Founding Trustee, UK Children’s Neurological Research Campaign (Jan 2008-).