Abstract
Background:Frontal sinus breach during craniotomy may occur inadvertently or intentionally. Management of a breached frontal sinus is controversial as numerous operative techniques have been described. Frontal sinus breach may result in life-threatening complications, require additional surgeries, and increase the risk for long-term infectious sequelae. A literature review found a paucity of neurosurgical reports examining breached frontal sinus management or specific analyses of unilateral versus bilateral frontal sinus cranialization.Objective:A frontal sinus cranialization technique employed for patients involving frontal sinus breach and analyze outcomes managed with bilateral versus unilateral cranialization was presented in this study.Methods:A retrospective review of outcomes was performed using our Institutional Review Board-approved surgical case database between September 2012 and September 2018.Results:Thirty-three frontal sinus cranializations following frontal sinus breach were identified. Average follow-up time was 25 months. A statistically significant difference in postoperative infections was observed in patients with a history of previous cranial surgery who underwent unilateral compared to bilateral frontal sinus cranialization.Conclusion:These results suggest surgeons performing craniotomy or consulted intraoperatively for suspected frontal sinus breach should have a high suspicion for breached frontal sinus and a low threshold for frontal sinus cranialization. Furthermore, when performing frontal sinus cranialization, surgeons should consider performing bilateral, instead of unilateral, cranialization in patients with a history of previous craniotomy as bilateral cranialization was shown to decrease the risk of postoperative infection.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 261-264 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Journal of Craniofacial Surgery |
Volume | 31 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1 2020 |
Keywords
- Breach
- cranialization
- cranioplasty
- frontal
- management
- outcomes
- sinus
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Surgery
- Otorhinolaryngology