someone is diagnosed with Miller–Dieker syndrome. Only a few shallow sulci and shallow Sylvian fissures are seen; this takes on an hourglass or figure-8 appearance on the axial imaging. The thickness and measurement for a person without MDS is 3–4 mm. With MDS, a person's cortex is measured at 12–20 mm. Treatment While no cure for MDS is available yet, many complications associated with this condition can be treated, and a great deal can be done to support or compensate for functional disabilities. Because of the diversity of the symptoms, it can be necessary to see a number of different specialists and undergo various examinations, including: Developmental evaluation Cardiologists evaluation Otolaryngology Treatment of seizures Urologic evaluation Genetic counseling-balanced chromosomal translocation should be excluded if parents with an affected child are planning another pregnancy, so parents with affected children should visit a genetic counselor. This disease is fairly uncommon, and treatment is scarce. Prognosis Most individuals with this condition do not survive beyond childhood. Individuals with MDS usually die in infancy and therefore do not live to the age where they can reproduce and transmit MDS to their offspring. Due to more accurate diagnosis by MRI and improved management of symptoms with medical treatments including gastrostomy (feeding tubes), suction machines, seizure medications, tracheostomy, and management of secretions, more children are surviving into adulthood and have a better quality of life. Development of skills and core strength may be improved with physical therapy, but improvement is limited by the severity of the condition. Some children may be able to sit up, crawl, or say a few basic words, but most are severely developmentally delayed and remain at the level of infants for their lifetime. At all ages the most common cause of death is pneumonia, often after multiple cases have weakened the respiratory function. Epidemiology Miller-Dieker occurs in less than one in 100,000 people and can occur in all races. Given this statistic, it is conclusive that roughly 75000 people worldwide are affected by MDS. History MDS was named for the two physicians, James Q. Miller and H. Dieker., who independently described the condition in the 1960s. The hallmark of MDS is lissencephaly, a condition in which the outer layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex, is abnormally thick and lacks the normal convolutions (gyri). In some areas of the brain, gyri are fewer in number but wider than normal (pachygyri). Other