Custom skull implants make it possible to effect many different types of aesthetic head shape changes that were not possible just a decade ago. Fabricating the implant from the patient’s 3D CT scan, the only restrictions to its design and size is the limits of how much the scalp can stretch to accommodate it. Placed through relatively small scalp incisions, such custom implants can correct skull asymmetries, help make for a rounder head shape and add volume to flat areas of the skull.
The objective of most aesthetic skull surgeries is to make for a rounder head shape. This is usually assessed in the front view with how it looks across the top the head in its arc from ear to ear. Like facial shapes, head shapes come in heart, square, pear, rectangle, round, oval, diamond and oblong when viewed from the frontal perspective. Most patients would choose the round or oval head shape as the most aesthetically pleasing and this is the form that most skull implants are designed to achieve.
But a few patients may want a non-traditional head shape that does not fall into these classic head shape descriptions. One such example is that of the peaked or sagittal head shape. This is where a raised midline ridge is evident with an overall head shape that is more square. This makes for three distinct angles to the head shape, one in the midline and the one on each side as it transitions into the temporal or side of the head. Some patients replicate this head shape look by their hairstyles. But such head shapes are possible to create by a custom skull implant that is designed to do so.
Such a designed skull implant will show its shape the best in men that have very short cut hair or who shave their head.
Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana