Cryopreservation of autogeneous bone flap in cranial surgical practice: what is the future? A grade B and evidence level 4 meta-analytic study.

Abstract

Although we did not find any significative difference among the frequencies of the complications of the series, it is our opinion that freezing the bone flap is preferable to abdominal pocketing because it needs no double surgical abdominal time and the bone flap frozen is stronger to mechanical loading than fresh flap. Cryopreservation of autologous bone flap should be the standard technique of preservation for delayed cranioplasty but a multicentric prospective trial is advisable to obtain in short time statistically significant results focusing better on the rate of marginal resorption of the bone flap using new cryoprotectant solutions.