Cheekbone Fracture Repair

Q: Dr. Eppley, I am scheduled to have an old cheekbone fracture reapir procedure by you in a few weeks. The two procedures you will perform on me are: (21407) treatment of fracture of orbit except blowout with implant Left side and (21270) augmentation of cheekbone left side. My questions are what exactly will you be doing as far the actual repairs? Will it require breaking the bone? If screws are used anytime in the procedure, will that negate my ability to have an MRI of the head region in the future because of the metal? Will I feel the implants and screws in my face when I rub it? Lastly, how durable will the implants be if I get hit in the face playing basketball? Thank you for being able to help me restore my features after so long of an injury. I trust you and your reputation and I feel I am in the best competent hands possible.Thank you for your time.

A: Your old cheekbone/infraorbital rim fracture is going to be treated by a camouflage technique to build out the depressed bone and lower eyelid and cheek facial areas. This would be a combined cheek implant and infraorbital rim implant. Any implants used would be screwed into place with very small titanium screws. (about the size of eyeglass screws) They do not interfere with any type of x-rays. With such an old and healed facial fracture there is no benefit to breaking the bone and repositioning it. That would be very traumatic and less effective at this point that building out and filling in the obvious facial indentations/asymmetry. These implants are very durable and would pose no problems playing contact sports. In some ways you can think of them like placing protective bumpers on the bone.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana