Immediate Cranioplasty for Postcranioplasty Infection in Patients with Ventriculoperitoneal Shunt

World Neurosurg. (2018) 119:311-314

Patients with a ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt tend to develop epidural fluid accumulation after cranioplasty and also have a higher frequency of syndrome of the trephined after bone flap removal. Thus treatment of patients with postcranioplasty infection and a VP shunt is often challenging.

CASE DESCRIPTION: We treated 2 patients with postcranioplasty infection and a VP shunt. One patient had undergone decompressive craniectomy for cerebral hemorrhage, and the other patient had a large frontal dead space following resection of a brain tumor. Both patients were treated by immediate cranioplasty with obliteration of the epidural dead space by using a vascularized free latissimus dorsi muscle flap. In both of them, the postoperative course was uneventful without any complications.

CONCLUSIONS: Immediate cranioplasty and obliteration of the epidural dead space with a vascularized free latissimus dorsi muscle flap is an alternative for patients with postcranioplasty infection who are unfavorable candidates for temporary bone flap removal because of the risk of neurologic deterioration

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