Quantification of Severity of Unilateral Coronal Synostosis.

OBJECTIVES

Severity of unilateral coronal synostosis (UCS) can vary. Quantification is important for treatment, expectations of treatment and natural outcome, and education of the patient and parents.

DESIGN

Retrospective study.

SETTING

Primary craniofacial center.

PATIENTS, PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-three preoperative patients with unilateral coronal craniosynostosis (age < 2 years).

INTERVENTION

Utrecht Cranial Shape Quantifier (UCSQ) was used to quantify severity using the variables: asymmetry ratio of frontal peak and ratio of frontal peak gradient.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES(S): The UCSQ variables were combined and related to visual score using Pearson correlation coefficient; UCSQ and visual score were additionally compared to Di Rocco classification by one-way analysis of variance or Kruskal-Wallis test. All measurements were made on computed tomography scans.

RESULTS

Good correlation between UCSQ and visual score was found ( = 0.67). No statistically significant differences were found between group means of UCSQ in the 3 categories of Di Rocco classification ( = 0.047; > .05). Kruskal-Wallis test showed no significant differences between group means of visual score in the 3 categories of Di Rocco classification (Kruskal-Wallis (2) = 0.871; > .05).

CONCLUSIONS

Using UCSQ, we can quantify UCS according to severity using characteristics, it outperforms traditional methods and captures the whole skull shape. In future research, we can apply UCSQ to 3D-photogrammetry due to the utilization of external landmarks.