Porous hydroxyapatite custom made implants for cranioplasty: two years of clinical experience

Lesions to the head became particularly frequent in the last years, in correspondance to the increase in road accidents or accidents at home or in working place: in many cases, after healing, a wide bone defect remain in the patient's skull, that is necessary to fill. The aim of this work was to describe the improvements obtained in cranioplasty procedure using custom made devices made out porous hydroxyapatite. The cranioplasty cases described are referred to frontal-temporal-parietal bone defects in patients that reported traumatic lesions in road accidents. In all these cases, the surgical treatment was made in two steps: first the damaged tissues were removed and only in a second surgical step was applied the porous hydroxyapatite custom made device. After two years of experience it is possible to underline the complete 'restitutio ad integrum' of the cases treated.