Can My Forehead Deformity Be Fixed After Craniosynostosis Surgery?

Q: Dear Dr.Eppley,  I am 27 years ol male and when I was born I had a skull deformity in which the bones of the skull were bonded together. For that reason I had a surgery at the age of 3 year s old in order to be fixed. But the surgery left me with a disfigurement on my forehead, which is a deformity which affected how people were looking at me since I was little. I was hoping after I have read an article of yours on the web that you can help me. I look forward if you can give me your opinion and the possibility to treat my forehead problem.

A: The congenital skull deformity to which you refer is generally known as craniosynostosis. The skull bones are connected by fibrous connections known as sutures. If one or more of these is fused, the skull can not grow (expand) properly and a variety of craniofacial deformities results, depending upon which cranial sutures were affected.

I suspect that your form of crasniosyntosis was either trigonocephaly (metopic suture) or plagiocephaly (coronal sutures). While early surgical intervention (frontal and orbital bone reshaping) is very helpful, it often leaves some residual forehead contour issues. I would have to see pictures of you to determine exactly what the forehead shape issue.

In men, forehead reshaping is complicated by the need to use a scalp incision for access to do the surgery. In patient’s that have had a prior craniofacial surgery in infancy or as a young child, an incision (scar) would already exist making this surgery obstacle irrelevant.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis Indiana