The Management of Blood Loss in Non-Syndromic Craniosynostosis Patients Undergoing Barrel Stave Osteotomy.
OBJECTIVE
Barrel stave osteotomy is a widely used procedure in neurosurgery for the majority of craniosynostosis patients. Both in the intraoperative and postoperative periods, there is inevitable leakage type bleeding from the bones undergoing osteotomy. A number of studies have been performed in order to prevent this complication but a concise procedure is still lacking.


METHODS
Synostectomy and parietotemporal barrel stave osteotomy were applied to 143 patients who were operated on with a diagnosis of craniosynostosis between the years 2005-2013. At the beginning to osteotomy, 5 ml/kg erythrocyte suspension (ES) was given for probable blood loss. Whole blood count was performed at the postoperative 1st and 6th hours and cases with hemoglobin levels below 10 or with hematocrit levels which had decreased more than 5% between the 1st and 6th hours were administered erythrocyte transfusion.


RESULTS
Of the patients, 100 were boys and 43 were girls. Of these, 98 had metopic, 30 had sagittal, 9 had metopic+sagittal, 4 had unilateral, 2 had bilateral and 6 had coronal synostosis. All the cases were administered intraoperative erythrocyte suspension. The preoperative amount of administered mean erythrocyte was 8.61 ml/kg. In the postoperative period, 92 patients were administered erythrocyte suspension. The postoperative amount of administered mean erythrocyte suspension was 7.98 ml/kg.


CONCLUSIONS
For an operated infant with craniosynostosis who is operated on in the first year of life, undergoing osteotomy and inevitable bone-borne blood losses are very important and these have to be replaced immediately.
Erciyes University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurosurgery, Kayseri, Turkey.
Ahmet
A
Kucuk
Abdulfettah
A
Tumturk
Ismail Samil
IS
Gergin
Sukru
S
Oral
Sureyya Burcu
SB
Gorkem
Ali
A
Kurtsoy
Halit
H
Madenoglu
Ibrahim Suat
IS
Oktem
D016063:Blood Loss, Surgical / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003398:Craniosynostoses / Q000601:surgery*; D017707:Erythrocyte Transfusion / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D019635:Neurosurgical Procedures; D010027:Osteotomy / Q000379:methods*; D011300:Preoperative Care / Q000379:methods*; D012189:Retrospective Studies