Posterior Cranial Distraction in Craniosynostosis: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Abstract

Objective

Posterior cranial distraction (PCD) is a surgical technique to address craniosynostosis, especially in syndromic patients. The technique has the ability to significantly expand the cranium, while requiring minimal dural dissection, compared to cranial remodeling. Our goals were to determine the patient characteristics and surgical outcomes of PCD. The two questions that we sought to answer were: 1) What is the average published complication rate and the most common complications of PCD? and 2) How much intracranial volume expansion can one expect with PCD?

Design

A PubMed database search of articles on PCD was performed. Case reports and articles with overlapping patients were excluded. A systematic review was performed using the remaining articles.

Main Outcome Measures

Patient data were extracted in order to determine the total number of patients, patients with a syndrome, types of syndromes, mean age at surgery, mean distraction distance, mean increase in intracranial volume, and complications.

Results

18 articles representing 325 patients were analyzed. A syndrome was present in 68.6% of patients. The mean age at time of surgery was 22.1 months. Mean distraction amount was 24.7 mm. Mean increase in intracranial volume was 253.2 cm³. The overall complication rate was 32.2%, with the most common complications being surgical-site infection, hardware-related complications and delayed wound healing.

Conclusions

PCD is a powerful technique in the management of syndromic craniosynostosis, although complication rates are significantly higher than traditional remodeling techniques. Future studies should compare the effects of supratorcular and infratorcular osteotomies on intracranial volume, cosmesis and complications.