Turkish Neurosurgery
Statistical shape analyses of patients with scaphocephaly after surgical remodeling
Gokhan Ocakoglu1, Mevlut Ozgur Taskapilioglu2, Seckin Kaya2, Zeynep Yazici3
1Uludag University Faculty of Medicine, Biostatistics, Bursa,
2Uludag University Faculty of Medicine, Neurosurgery, Bursa,
3Uludag University Faculty of Medicine, Radiology, Bursa,
DOI: 10.5137/1019-5149.JTN.26387-19.2

Aim:A surgical procedure is viewed as a typical treatment choice for patients with sagittal craniosynostosis. Barrel-stave osteotomies and cranial remodelling are the preferred surgical methods, but it is not always possible to understand whether remodelling has been successful especially in the first postoperative day. We aim to investigate the differences in the head shapes of scaphocephaly patients during the pre- and postoperative phases.Material and Methods:Cranium shape data were collected from the two-dimensional digital images. The generalised Procrustes analysis was used to obtain mean shapes in the pre- and postoperative phases. The shape deformation of the cranium from the pre- to postoperative phases was evaluated using the thin plate spline method.Results:There was no significant cranial shape difference in the pre and postoperative phases. The high-level deformations from the pre- to postoperative phase were seen in thin plate spline graphs. The highest deformation was observed at the biparietal dimension.Conclusion:In this study, we showed that the structural deformation of the cranium was correlated with sagittal craniosynostosis. The present study also shows that pre- and postoperative head shapes of patients with scaphocephaly can be compared using head shape with the landmark-based geometric morphometric method by taking into consideration the topographic distribution.

Corresponding author : Gokhan Ocakoglu