when a person goes under a surgery for their head when they crack the bone to operate how do they put it back? Or does it grow back?
In: Biology
My dad and my mom both had head surgeries. They used a metal plate to replace the skull. They also sometimes use like a mesh material. Iirc.
Typically a metal plate is used or a bone graft (artificial or from a donor). These are both affixed to the skull using small screws. The scalp is then sewed or stapled back together.
It really depends on the surgery.
Sometimes, a hole is drilled to do whatever surgery. This heals on its own, but a mesh may be used for larger holes.
Sometimes, the skull needs to be fixed, because a fracture is what was wrong with the patient. Depending on the size and type of fracture, metal plates, screws, mesh, or a combination of these, is needed to repair the fracture. Sometimes nothing at all is needed.
When undergoing brain surgery for certain issues, sometimes the surgeon can go through the nose to fix the problem. This is less invasive. Orher times, the surgeon may have to perform a skull flap surgery. Part of the skull is cut, set aside in antiseptic/saline, and the surgeon performs the surgery. After thr surgery is complete, the surgeon replaces the cut part of the skull, using tiny plates and screws to secure it, then letting it heal.
If a part of the skull itself is the issue (tumor originating from the bone, or part of the skull too damaged from, for example, a depression fracture, to repair), then mesh, donor graft, or plates and screws may be necessary.
Craniotomy pieces can be wired back to the rest of the skull. The vessels would then invade the ablated piece and revascularize it progressively.
If it’s a decompressive craniotomy, they would usually leave a “window” open suture the skin back. Then they would keep the part of the skull that they removed to be frozen and grafted back, in the short term. The craniectomy piece has low probability of grafting properly in the mid- to long-term, so they would fallback on using titanium or ceramic grafts, molded to give adequate appearance.
Bone grows all the time. Slowly, but it does grow. Keeping as much of the bone in place afterwards as possible does help speed that recovery up due to less bone needing to be regrown.
This is how we can tell injuries we’re fatal or not in fossils. If the edges of the damage are smoothed out, the bone started to regrow, meaning they survived the injury, and it started to heal.
Metal plates are used in some cases
I’ve had a crainiotomy for a tumour. They cut a flap of skin on three sides and then peel it back to reveal the skull. Remove a square of skull bone, then remove the tumour. My bone was fixed back with screws in each corner, and then the skin flap is stiched back.
It’s left quite a scar.
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