How do surgeons fix a hole in the skull?
Added 2020-01-12 17:00:02 +0000 UTCA ‘craniotomy’ is a surgery to remove a portion of the skull (called a ‘bone flap’), typically done to reach a brain tumour or manage a bleed on the brain.
Sometimes it is not possible to replace the bone flap after surgery, e.g. if surgeons are concerned about ongoing brain swelling. In these cases, the hole left in the skull will eventually need to be reconstructed. This is important as it both protects the brain and restores the natural shape of the skull (an important psychological consideration).
Cranioplasty is a surgery to reconstruct a hole in the skull left after a previous operation or injury. I've arranged the surgical sequence as a comic to show a modern way it can be done using a patient-specific 3D printed titanium matrix embedded with a calcium phosphate mosaic.
You can check out my illustrated article about the surgery here: artibiotics.com/blog/cranioplasty and can see a real case video explained by a neurosurgeon and illustrated by me here.
A big thanks goes out to OssDsign whose support of the Brainbook x Artibiotics video project has made it possible to shed light on this developing area of neurosurgery in an open way.
I am putting together a breakdown of how I designed this art for my Patrons next Monday, so stay tuned!
