Factors predicting complications following cranioplasty.

This study aimed to identify factors that predict complications following cranioplasty, by conducting a retrospective cohort study at a large tertiary care center. Electronic databases were searched to identify all patients who underwent cranioplasty at our institution. Baseline demographics, perioperative variables, and outcomes were extracted.

Two cases of 16th century head injuries managed in royal European families.

In Europe, during the 16th century, there were a number of prominent general surgeons adventurous enough to consider operating on the brain for head injuries. From the time of Hippocrates, operating on the skull and brain was considered both treacherous and too dangerous to be undertaken except on rare occasions. Operating on a member of a royal court was considered even more exceptional because if the outcome was poor, the surgeon could lose a hand or limb, or, even worse, be beheaded.

How to get in and out of the skull: from tumi to "hammer and chisel" to the Gigli saw and the osteoplastic flap.

Making "holes in the skull" is an ancient art and by some is considered the second oldest profession in the world-the first being prostitution. Early surgeons, and later on neurosurgeons, devised a number of ingenious ways to make a hole in the skull or elevate a depressed skull fracture. Trephined skulls from antiquity have now been found in most parts of world, showing that the art of trephining is not only ancient but clearly widespread.

The Reverend Russell H. Conwell, W. Wayne Babcock, and the "soup bone" cranioplasties of 1915.

In 1915, faced with 2 patients with large skull defects, W. Wayne Babcock, an obstetrician-gynecologist-turned-general surgeon, operating in a modest North Philadelphia hospital, did something extraordinary: he went to the hospital kitchen to look for a cranial graft. Based heavily on archival and other primary sources, the authors tell the remarkable tale of the "soup bone" cranioplasties of the Samaritan Hospital and place these operations within the context of the early modern American hospital.

A review of reconstructive materials for use in craniofacial surgery bone fixation materials, bone substitutes, and distractors.

Over the last 40 years, craniofacial surgery, in general, and surgery for craniosynostosis, in particular, has witnessed the introduction of a number of new materials for use in operations involving the cranial vault. Some of these materials have proven quite useful over time, while others have failed to meet their stated objectives. In this review, the more popular implant materials are analyzed, and their relative merits and drawbacks are discussed.

Craniosynostosis: posterior two-third cranial vault reconstruction using bioresorbable plates and a PDS suture lattice in sagittal and lambdoid synostosis.

Introduction: Beginning in 2004, we modified our surgical technique for a cranial vault remodeling in sagittal and lambdoid synostosis. Beginning in the early 1990s, we started using a calvarial vault remodeling technique in sagittal and lambdoid synostosis that involves removing the posterior two thirds of the skull, extending from the coronal suture to below the lambdoid suture to within 1-1.5 cm of the foramen magnum.

Medical and surgical practice as represented in cultural figures from the pre-conquest Mesoamerican territories.

Objective: To review medical and surgical practices in pre-Conquest Mexico in the Olmec and Mayan regions and areas of West Mexico as depicted on terra-cotta, stone, and stelae figures.

Methods: A search was undertaken to locate and describe interesting and unusual medical and surgical figures from the pre-Conquest period of Mesoamerica. Using the details of these figures, descriptions of medical and surgical practices are outlined.

Cranial base surgery.

Surgery of the cranial base presents significant challenges for the surgeon and patient alike. The goal of ablative surgery-to obtain disease-free margins-contrasts with the patient's functional and esthetic needs. This comes into sharp juxtaposition in cranial base surgery.

Cervical spine surgery in the ancient and medieval worlds.

The early historical literature on cervical spine surgery lacks printed material for review, and we can rely only on pathological material from the prehistoric period that has survived as a result of anthropological investigations. After the introduction of Egyptian and early Hellenic medicine, some written material became available. This paper reviews these materials, from both books and manuscripts, in an effort to understand the development of cervical spine surgery from the perspectives of the personalities involved and the early surgical practices used.