Spring-mediated sagittal craniosynostosis treatment at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: technical notes and literature review.

OBJECT Sagittal craniosynostosis has been treated using both cranial remodeling techniques and modification of the sagittal strip craniectomy. A more recent technique is to implant springs in conjunction with a suturectomy to transversely expand the parietal bones to accommodate the growing brain. In this paper the authors describe and evaluate several modifications to the spring-mediated cranioplasty (SMC) technique, most notably use of an ultrasonic scalpel to limit dural dissection and maximize opening of the stenosed suture by placement of multiple spring devices. In addition, the literature is reviewed comparing SMC to other surgical treatments of sagittal synostosis. METHODS The authors retrospectively reviewed patients who presented to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia with a diagnosis of sagittal synostosis from August 2011 to November 2014. A pooled data set was created to compare our institutional data to previously published work. A comprehensive literature review was performed of all pre...