Reconstruction of a Forehead Bone Defect Caused by Penetrating Trauma.

An 8-year-old girl suffered a penetrating trauma when a house key was stuck in her forehead. The CT scan showed the key-penetrated scalp and the brain. The bone around the key was scraped and the key was removed, but no reconstruction was performed at the time to avoid any infection. After 8 months, we performed the reconstruction. A full-thickness bone of the same size as that of the defect was collected and split into two tables. The outer table was used for the correction of the defect, whereas the inner table was restored to the original site. There were no complications, and no step was touched through the surface. An autologous skull bone is useful as a reconstruction material when a patient is a child and a skull has sufficient thickness to divide it into two tables. It can be regarded as a useful method for cranial reconstruction in children.