Primary basilar impression of the skull is a developmental defect of the cranium in which there is invagination of the foramen magnum upward into the posterior cranial fossa. Basilar impression is often associated with other malformations of the notochord and craniovertebral junction, such as occipitalization of the atlas, Klippel-Feil anomaly (see 118100), Chiari type I malformation (118420), and syringomyelia (186700) (Paradis and Sax, 1972; Bhangoo and Crockard, 1999). Secondary basilar impression occurs as a result of generalized skeletal diseases, including hyperparathyroidism (see 145000), Paget disease (see 167250), and osteogenesis imperfecta (see, e.g., 166200).
Platybasia refers to a skull base with an abnormally obtuse angle between the planes of the clivus and the anterior fossa. Platybasia may occur in basilar impression, but it is not of medical significance on its own (Bhangoo and Crockard, 1999).
Historically, basilar impression was defined radiologically by numerous parameters, including the lines defined by Chamberlain (1939), McGregor (1948), and Fischgold and Metzger (1952), and the angle defined by Bull et al. (1955). [from
OMIM]