Neurosurgeons Ramūnas Raugalas and Ieva Šataitė of the Children's Hospital, VUL Santariškių Clinic Branch performed an operation on a fifteen-year-old girl for a skull defect that occurred after removing a bone damaged by fibrous dysplasia, using a prosthesis made of hydroxyapatite for the first time.
According to neurosurgeon R. Raugal, the teenage girl has a rare disease - a benign bone destruction that damaged the bones of the facial area, which resulted in a constantly growing and increasing bump on the temple and the arch of the eyebrows, deforming the face and falling on the eye.
According to Dr. R. Raugal, previously neurosurgeons repaired skull defects after fractures or bone tumors using plastic and formed the required shape like sculptors during surgery. In this case, the skull defect was in a more difficult place - in the arch of the eyebrows, at the temple, where it would be quite difficult to shape it beautifully, symmetrically, so to get a good result, a hydroxyapatite prosthesis made individually for this patient was used.
"Hydroxyapatite is a substance that is found naturally in human bones up to 71 percent. It is biologically completely compatible with the human body and has a special porous structure. There are several types of pores: some are the simplest, so that secretions can be removed after surgery, others - so that blood vessels and bone material in the body can grow into the prosthesis. Within a few months, this prosthesis is replaced by natural bone, grows into it and dissolves there," explains neurosurgeon R. Raugalas.
The advantage of this technology is obvious - using such a material, it is possible to cover skull defects in children from 2 years old, that is, at the age when the skull is still growing (it reaches the size of an adult's skull only at 7-8 years).
The production of this modern prosthesis, which was fully compensated by the patients' funds, took about a month. It is made in Italy based on the patient's CT scan data provided by doctors. Before the operation, the doctors were able to see a 3D model of this product, and later received two copies of the prosthesis from the manufacturers. "One copy is intended in case the patient suffers an injury before the prosthesis has yet grown, and the other one - if the prosthesis is damaged during surgery due to the high fragility of the material," says the doctor.
The operation went smoothly, and according to the company supplying this material, neurosurgeons at the Children's Hospital were the first in Lithuania to use such a skull prosthesis made of hydroxyapatite.
