Unfavourable results in craniofacial surgery

Craniofacial surgery is one of the newer subspecialties of plastic surgery and owes its birth to the pioneering work of Paul Tessier in the late sixties. Since then this challenging specialty work has been taken up by many centres around the word including India. Initial reports in late eighties and early nineties showed morbidity and mortality ranging from 1.6% to 4.3%. However over past few decades, with improved instrumentations, safer anaesthesia and cumulative experience of surgeons the morbidity and mortality has been brought down to as low as 0.1% in many centres in USA. In our centre at Post-graduate Institute, Chandigarh, the mortality rate is about 0.8% (4 out of 480 cases). The learning curve in this surgery is rather steep but with experience and a well-coordinated team work, results in this complex subspecialty can be improved. The infection is a major cause for worry but can be easily prevented by sound surgical principles and placing a vascularised tissue barrier between the extradural space and the nasopharynx/sinus mucosa.