Customized cost‑effective polymethylmethacrylate cranioplasty: a cosmetic comparison with other low‑cost methods of cranioplasty

Acta Neurochirurgica (2022) 164:655–667

Intraoperative hand-moulded cranioplasty and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) prostheses made from bone impressions are economical but the cosmetic results are less than satisfactory. Commercially available customized prostheses perform better but are prohibitively expensive. We evaluate the performance of a locally developed, low-cost customized PMMA cranioplasty prosthesis.

Objective To compare the cosmetic outcome of 3 types of PMMA cranioplasty as well as with objective measurements on postoperative CT scans

Methods This study includes 70 patients who underwent cranioplasty between March 2016 and June 2020. In this period, patients had their cranioplasty prostheses made by intra-operative hand moulding (HM), by using the removed bone as a template and making a bone impression (BI) or by 3D printing the prosthesis based on a CT scan. Cosmetic outcomes were assessed by the patient and the operating surgeon on an 8-point scale. The degree of measured anthropometric asymmetry was measured on a postoperative CT scan and correlated with the cosmetic outcome.

Results Our locally produced 3D-printed cranioplasty prostheses showed a statistically better performance in cosmetic scores when compared to the HM and BI (p value < 0.001). CT anthropometric measurements significantly correlated with cosmetic outcome (p value 0.01)

Conclusion Our 3D cranioplasty prostheses had better cosmetic outcomes than HM and BI prostheses, and our technique is able to produce them at 10% of the cost of the currently available commercial customized prostheses.

Fronto-orbitozygomatic approach: functional and cosmetic outcomes in a series of 169 patients

J Neurosurg 128:466–474, 2018

Advantages of the fronto-orbitozygomatic (FOZ) approach have been reported extensively in the literature; nevertheless, restoration of normal anatomy and the esthetic impact of surgery are increasingly important issues for patients and neurosurgeons. The aim of this study was to analyze functional and cosmetic outcomes in a series of 169 patients with different pathologies who underwent surgery in which the FOZ approach was used.

METHODS Between January 2000 and December 2014, 250 consecutive patients underwent surgery with an FOZ approach as the primary surgical treatment. Follow-up data were available for only 169 patients; 103 (60.9%) of these patients were female and 66 (39.1%) were male, and their ages ranged from 6 to 77 years (mean 46.9 years; SD 15.6 years). Mean follow-up time was 66 months (range 6–179 months; SD 49.5 months). Evaluation of clinical outcomes was performed with a focus on 4 main issues: surgical complications, functional outcome, cosmetic outcome, and patient satisfaction. The additional time needed to perform orbitotomy and orbital reconstruction was also evaluated.

RESULTS The permanent postoperative complications included forehead hypesthesia (41.4%) and dysesthesia (15.3%), frontal muscle weakness (10.3%), exophthalmos (1.4%), enophthalmos (4.1%), diplopia (6.6%; 2% were related to surgical approach), and persistent periorbital and eyelid swelling (3%). Approximately 90% of the patients reported subjectively that surgery did not affect their quality of life or complained of only minor problems that did not influence their quality of life significantly. The mean time needed for orbitotomy and orbital reconstruction was approximately half an hour.

CONCLUSIONS Comprehensive knowledge of the potential complications and overall clinical outcomes of the FOZ approach can be of great utility to neurosurgeons in balancing the well-known benefits of the approach with potential additional morbidities.