Can autologous bone be used for skull repair

The selection of materials for cranial bone repair has always been a big issue. The choice of material for cranial repair is actually very demanding, and if the material is not suitable for one’s own physiological environment, there may be various serious problems, causing a lot of discomfort, and may even be life-threatening. This is similar to an organ transplant, except that the transplant is not a living organ, but a corresponding repair material. The greatest fear of organ transplantation is tissue incompatibility and rejection, which is also a problem with cranial bone repair. In many clinical cases, postoperative rejection occurs due to poor tissue compatibility of the material, and even the scalp is destroyed and the material is exposed. So some patients ask can autologous bone be used for cranial bone repair, and is it possible to solve the rejection problem by using autologous bone! In fact, in the history of cranial bone repair, there are indeed precedents of using autologous bone for repair, such as using tibia, rib, shoulder swelling bone, skeleton and sternum as cranial bone substitute, but there are also many problems. First of all, there are only a few bones in the human body, each with its own role, and repairing the cranial bone may cause another defect; in addition, it is necessary to open a second surgical area, which is more traumatic and riskier; in many cases, the autologous bone may be absorbed after transplantation, and there is also the problem that the shape of the autologous bone structure is fixed, which is difficult to shape, and so on. Therefore, autologous bone repair has long been eliminated. The most ideal material for cranial bone repair is polyether ether ketone (PEEK), which has excellent histocompatibility and is not subject to rejection. In addition, the properties of PEEK are very close to those of autologous cranial bone, which is becoming the latest trend in cranial repair materials.