Clinical and Experimental Study of Heat-cured Methyl Methacrylate for Cranioplasty

Abstract

We report our experience and technique of prefabrication method for cranioplasty, using heat-cured methyl methacrylate (MMA).
Recently, an autopolymerizing MMA has been a very popular material for cranioplasty. But an autopolymerizing MMA is so irritable to vital tissue that subgaleal effusion has been frequently noted after cranioplasty. And for a large cranial defect, it is difficult to get a good cosmetic result from the one-stage autopolymerizing MMA method. So, we have used a heat-cured MMA as a material of cranioplasty, and a prosthesis was formed preoperatively using an impression technique. In this method, the subgaleal effusion was markedly decreased and excellent cosmetic result was obtained even to a large cranial defect in a shortened operative time.
The histological reactions to the autopolymerizing MMA and the heat-cured MMA were evaluated experimentally embedding each piece of the two materials in the subcutaneous tissue of the rat. The inflammatory reactions including appearance of foreign body giant cells were far less observed in the subcutaneous tissue around the heatcured MMA.
This experimental result emphasized the advantage of heat-cured MMA method over autopolymerizing MMA.