What to do when a titanium plate is exposed in a wound after cranial repair?

Cranial repair surgery is a classic and routine surgery in neurosurgery, which is performed to repair cranial defects caused by various reasons, to remodel the complete and closed cranial cavity, to restore and improve the neurological function, and to prevent various cranial defect syndromes. Due to the high incidence of cranial defects, cranial bone repair has been widely performed in recent years, and the technology is very mature, and the repair materials are also constantly being innovated. The selection of cranial bone repair materials has a great influence on the repair results. At present, there are two main types of cranial bone repair materials used in the clinic, one is the traditional titanium alloy material, but the new polyether ether ketone PEEK material. Titanium alloy material may be relatively more widely used in the clinic, and probably most neurosurgery departments in general hospitals use repair materials that are generally titanium alloy mesh or titanium alloy plate when carrying out cranial bone repair surgery. However, titanium alloy materials are not ideal, and various problems and defects often occur in clinical use. For example, the titanium plate is exposed after cranial repair, which is often referred to as material exposure. This kind of titanium plate exposed situation generally has the following reasons: one is probably related to the material rejection reaction, that is, titanium plate material and patient tissue incompatibility, causing the patient’s body abnormal immune response, back to their own scalp tissues, resulting in scalp breakage, the material exposed; another important reason may be the edge of the titanium plate material is relatively sharp, on the scalp tissue to cause abrasion or cutting injury, over time, the scalp will In addition to material exposure, titanium plate or mesh material also has many other problems, such as hot and cold sensitivity, collapse and deformation by force, affecting CT and MRI, and poor molding effect, and so on. At present, our neurosurgery department, Dr. Zhu Anlin, the director of neurosurgery, widely use the new polyether ether ketone PEEK as the cranial bone repair material. Director Zhu introduced, polyether ether ether ketone is a special polymer material, excellent performance, and autologous skull is basically equivalent, can effectively avoid postoperative infection, rejection, wear and tear of the scalp and other conditions, to prevent the material exposed, there will be no hot and cold sensitivity reaction, force collapse deformation, affecting the CT nuclear magnetic examination, etc., and in addition, the polyether ether ketone through the three-dimensional reconstruction design, 3D printing production, highly restored the structure of the skull, molding The effect is excellent. In addition, Director Zhu’s team constantly improves and upgrades the technology and optimizes the design of materials, and also innovatively introduces the concept of cosmetic plastic surgery, which not only repairs the integrity of the defective skull, but also carries out cosmetic plastic surgery on the factors affecting the appearance, so as to achieve the good results of anatomical integrity, structural restoration, perfect function and beautiful appearance, which is highly praised and recognized by the majority of patients.