Cranioplasty for Skull Defects With Polypropylene Abdominal Wall Mesh

Cranioplasty is a well-established common surgery in the practice of neurosurgery and craniofacial surgery. In young patients, complete skull defect closure by bone splitting may be troublesome due to the difficulty to obtain enough bone area. In such cases, sometimes the authors need to use allografts, which may not be widely available in rural practice. In this study, the authors present the series of cranioplasty with polypropylene mesh, which is widely used in abdominal wall closure.

Nine patients with depressed compound skull fracture were treated by performing this technique. Selection criteria were: compound depressed skull fractures in which bones were fragmented in a way not able to be reconstructed with and leaving a skull defect, small-sized or relatively medium-sized skull defects, and skull defects not located on the sharp curvatures of the skull which needs firm bended meshes. All patients were male and their ages ranged between 8 months and 36 years.The skull bone defect was reconstructed with polypropylene abdominal wall mesh, which was sutured circumferentially with the galeal tissue.

Skull defects were successfully treated in all patients. The follow-up period ranged from 4 to 13 months. One patient with a history of alcoholism and neglectance developed a wound infection after 3 weeks of surgery. This patient was treated successfully with intravenous antibiotics without the need to remove the mesh. There were no complications in the remaining 8 patients.

Polypropylene mesh is a cheap and effective material for the reconstruction of small-sized or medium-sized skull defects. It can be a good alternative in rural practice and/or low economic communities, when other cranioplasty materials are not available.