A Dynamic Costal Cartilage Platform Promotes Ocular Prosthetic Excursion: Preliminary Report

The quality of life of the face involves mainly its configuration, and it plays an important functional role in communication skills. Thus, having artificial eyes is extremely essential in maintaining the quality of life of patients who have lost their eyeballs. We will present the details of the technique, including tips and innovations for eye socket reconstruction using spherical costal cartilage implant, which leads to dynamic and aesthetic results.

There were 19 cases of eye socket reconstruction using costal cartilages from 2008 to 2020. The patient age range was 18-77 years old. There were 10 cases of anophthalmia and 9 cases of ocular phthisis. In our operative method, we created the costal cartilage implant by harvesting the sixth costal cartilage of the affected side. If extraocular muscle remained, we sutured each muscle to the cartilage.

Our method made application of thin artificial eyes possible in all cases. Regarding postoperative complications, there were 1 case of postoperative infection and 1 case of vascular failure of temporoparietal fascial flap. Seventeen cases were wet socket, and 2 cases were dry socket. We had attained movement of the artificial eye in 15 cases.

Eye socket reconstruction is considered one of the most challenging operations, and various postoperative complications appear in the long term. Costal cartilages are considered as the most suitable materials to create the base of artificial eyes.