Background: With decompressive craniectomy for ischemic stroke, traumatic brain injury, and skull-infiltrating tumors, the need for cranioplasty has increased. Different materials for custom-made cranioplasties have been evaluated, but a gold standard could not yet be established. We report our experience with the new custom-made titanium CRANIOTOP(®)cranioplasty (CL Instruments, Germany).
Methods: A total of 50 consecutive patients received a CRANIOTOP cranioplasty within a 2 year interval. We reviewed the charts for time between initial surgery and cranioplasty, indication, complications, operative time, and cosmetic outcome. Postoperative imaging (computed tomography [CT] scan n = 48, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) n = 5) was screened for fitting accuracy and for hemorrhages.
Results: The most common indication for craniectomy were diffuse edema due to traumatic brain injury (n = 17, 34%) and ischemic stroke (n = 12, 24%). All patients were satisfied with the cosmetic result. In the postoperative CT scan accurate fitting was confirmed in all patients, the postoperative MRI was free of artifacts. Surgical revision was necessary in five patients because of empyema (n = 2), wound exposure (n = 2), and one cerebrospinal fluid fistula. Thus, the surgical morbidity was 10%.
Conclusion: With due consideration of the limitations of this retrospective study, we feel the present data allow concluding that the custom-made titanium cranioplasty CRANIOTOP(®)is safe and feasible.
Keywords: CL Instruments; CRANIOTOP; craniectomy; titanium cranioplasty.