Can I Get 4cms Of Skull Augmentation?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I’m sending this email to query about some things I’m concerned about, iIjust saw a case of a patient that had a skull augmentation with 28mm amount of increase of skull height but somehow I still believe that wouldn’t be sufficient enough in my case to achieve the desired results, my skull is just too small, severely flat and noticeably slopped down that I need at least augmentation of 35mm up to 40mm in order to get the skull shape of my dreams, I think I will benefit from a 2 tissue expanders instead of just one during the first stage procedure and an ear to ear incision in order to achieve those amounts of a augmentation. So my questions are, are my esthetic goals attainable ? And what are the procedures taking in order to achieve an amount of augmentation of 34mm up to 4cm?

A: While you may be correct about the approach needed for your optimal skull augmentation results, there are safe limits as to how much the scalp can be stretched and tolerate a big implant load underneath it. What you are asking exceeds those limits and is at very increased risk of complications. Here is a good rule to remember that is particularly relevant in implant augmentations…’it is far better to have half to two-thirds of your aesthetic goals achieved without complications than it is to have 100% of your goals obtained with complications’. That is because most significant implant complications are usually only resolved by removing the implant, thus losing everything.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana