Contributions and modifications of surgical techniques in pediatric craniofacial surgery

Abstract

Most of he craniofacial deformities are caused by development and growth alterations, traumata and neoplasms. To describe the integral surgical treatment of above deformities and the modifications and contributions carried out to traditional craniofacial techniques, a cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted in 46 patients seen by the craniofacial surgery multidisciplinary staff from "Juán Manuel Máquez" University Children Hospital from May, 2003 to March, 2007. Mean age of the patients operated on was of 6.3 years. Twenty Surgical tehniques were performed where the more used was he coronal suturectomy with a mask hemi-advance and frontal cranioplasty for the 15.2 %, followed by the coronal suturectomy with the two above techniques for te 10.9 %. The 8.9 % of patients need LeFort III osteotomy for distraction of half-third. The contributions included: radiate plication of dura mater with the bipolar type in the 75.0 % of craniotomy patients, punctiform incision of dura mater to decompress a transoperative encephalic hypertension or to retract the encephalon for osteotomies on skull base in the 64.3 % of craniotomy patients, greenstick fracture at level of pterion in the mask flap for the Marshal's techniques used in the 83.3 % of the brachycephalous or plagiocephaly with advance only of inolved side in the 100 % of plagiocephalies with a modification of Marshall's technique among others, for a total o 9 modifications to surgical procedures. There weren't complications associated with these procedures and more than two years of posoperative course.