E. Reinhart et al., CRANIOFACIAL GROWTH-CHARACTERISTICS AFTER BILATERAL FRONTO-ORBITAL ADVANCEMENT IN CHILDREN WITH PREMATURE CRANIOSYNOSTOSIS, Child's nervous system, 12(11), 1996, pp. 690-694
The standardized bilateral fronto-orbital advancement method of osteot
omy established at the University of Wuerzburg is applied in all forms
of craniosynostosis except scaphocephalus. The intention behind early
operation is to halt progression of the disorder and to institute the
physiological direction that growth should take. The preoperative sev
erity of the disorder, the particular symptoms of the various malforma
tions concerned, and the postoperative course of growth were analyzed
and assessed both clinically and cephalometrically using the retrospec
tive evaluations of the file data of 131 children with various forms o
f craniosynostosis. In contrast to linear craniectomy and so-called la
teral canthal advancement, which have sometimes been thought to lead t
o undesirable postoperative growth development, only II relapses requi
ring renewed operation were found postoperatively in our own study of
131 children, It became evident that the greater the severity of the m
alformation, the more probable it was that a relapse would occur. Fron
to-orbital advancement can only affect the pathologic growth pattern t
o a limited degree, especially when craniosynostosis is related to a s
yndrome. Cephalometric evaluation confirmed the limited potential for
growth in the area of the anterior skull base and in the mid-face in t
he presence of syndrome-related brachycephaly and severe facio-cranios
ynostoses. In such clinical cases, compensatory growth of maxillary hy
poplasia cannot be expected after fronto-orbital advancement.