Growing skull fracture repair by porous polyethylene sheet

Abstract

Growing skull fracture (GSF) is a rare non-neurological sequel to head injuries in infants and young children and remains almost undetected in the first few years of life. GSF with large calvarial defect in children is difficult to treat because of the absence of sufficient autograft and requires alternative materials for cranioplasty. Autologous split calvarial bone graft is the gold standard for repair, which is difficult to harvest, in very small children. We performed a cranioplasty in a 3-year-old boy with GSF with large temporo-parietal defect using polyethylene sheet along with free galeal graft duraplasty; presented here with review of the literature. It provides a stable, esthetic, permanent calvarial replacement without any additional procedures is easy to perform and does not require extensive instrumentation. Clinicians, especially in the developing world, where specialized services are at a premium, should keep this procedure in their armamentarium while dealing with this rare subset of cases.