Craniofacial morphology analysis as part of comprehensive treatment of patients with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

Introduction: Cranioplasty can be executed with different materials. Autologous bone is known as the gold standard. When this is not available alloplastic materials are used like PMMA and titanium. PMMA can be applied both intraand pre-operatively. The method used in our hospital is not described in literature. Goal: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the rate of success of the method used in our hospital. The success rate of our treatment will be analyzed and compared to the success rates in the literature. Materials and method: The study population consists of 46 patients who received a skull implant in the period 2003–2010. Collected data included patient factors age, sex, reason for skull implant and reason for hospitalization. Outcomes included re-operation, infection, dehiscence, hematoma, fracture of the implant, cosmetic complaints and death. These variables were used to perform statistical analyses. Through Google Scholar, PubMed and Cochrane Library literature was searched for articles which are relevant for this study. Results: The success rate of this study is 84,8% while the success rate of the literature is 89.1%. These two percentages do not differ significantly. Complications occurred in seven patients (15.2%), which include six infections (13%). In three of these six patients a dehiscence also occurred and one of these patients developed a hematoma. One other dehiscence was cured. In all six patients who had an infection the implant was removed and considered lost. There were no significant relationships between the variables age, reason for skull implant, re-operation, infection, dehiscence, hematoma, fracture and cosmetics. Conclusion: It is concluded that there is no significant difference between the success rate of the prefabricated PMMA implants from our hospital respectively the literature. No cause can be established for the failure of the skull implants, since no significant relationships were found between the variables.