Abstract:

BACKGROUND: With technology developing, the properties and clinical effects of various cranioplasty materials are different. Many repairing materials have been eliminated because of their own shortcomings, and the new types of biological materials are still under development.
OBJECTIVE: To explore the progress of cranioplasty materials and to analyze the data results.
METHODS: A retrieval was performed for the literature about biological materials to repair skull defects, published between 2002-01 and 2011-12, using key words of skull defect, repair, material, titanium plate, bone cement, autogenous bone, silicone rubber, organic glass or pmma or polymethyl methacrylate in Science Citation Index (SCI) database.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The repairing materials are various with different effects on skull defect repair. Now, the materials mainly include the autologous bone, allograft bone, medical polymer materials, titanium, bone cement and tissue engineering composites. The focus is what kind of materials can repair skull defects perfectly.