POROUS HYDROXYAPATITE CUSTOM MADE COMPONENT FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF CRANIAL THECA AREAS
The replacement of bone losses has always been a problem throughout the history of medicine.
The golden standard in bone grafting is an autologous fresh vascularised graft, but heterologous grafts or implants of mixture of autologous bone and biomaterials are commonly used.
In the case of the cranial theca, due to the extension of the defects and to the particular nature of the implant site, considerable limitations arise in the selection of the appropriate materials.
Today, the most followed surgical technique use implants made out polymeric biomaterials, e.g. PMMA (Poly-metyl-meta-acrilate).
The literature shows that rate of complications in patients treated with PMMA is rather high, leading in many cases to revision surgery.
The objective of the present work was to evaluate the possibility to solve this clinical problem with an innovative tecnique for reconstruction of the cranial theca areas using porous hydroxyapatite matrix.
The porous hydroxyapatite matrix shows an high degree of similarity to the bone structure: it underwent complete physico-chemical characterisation. From the experimental viewpoint it seems to be a better and innovative solution for the reconstruction of the cranial theca areas.
