Surgical technique of temporal muscle resuspension during cranioplasty for minimizing temporal hollowing: A case series

Abstract

Temporal hollowing is a common but often overlooked complication following cranioplasty. To minimize temporal hollowing caused by temporal muscle contraction, we present the novel technique for temporal muscle resuspension during cranioplasty. This is a retrospective case series which were done by a single surgeon at our university tertiary-A hospital between January 2019 and February 2020. The surgical technique was performed according to the forms of temporal muscle based on preoperative 3-D reconstruction and intraoperative images. All patients were followed up and evaluated on esthetic and functional outcomes. 17 patients with an average age of 39.35 years, frontotemporoparietal cranial defect size of 78.85 cm2, and median follow-up of 7 months were included. The main cause of decompressive craniectomy was trauma (n = 15). Techniques of temporal muscle augmentative resuspension were performed. The follow-up esthetic and functional outcome evaluation showed that all patients had good postoperative results. No revision surgery was found among the patients. This study proposes methods of temporal muscle augmentative resuspension based on forms of the muscle. We believe this might be of use in minimizing temporal hollowing after cranioplasty.