Quantification of Severity of Unilateral Coronal Synostosis

OBJECTIVES: Severity of unilateral coronal synostosis (UCS) can vary. Quantification is important for treatment, expectations of treatment and natural outcome, and education of the patient and parents. DESIGN: Retrospective study. SETTING: Primary craniofacial center. PATIENTS, PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-three preoperative patients with unilateral coronal craniosynostosis (age < 2 years). INTERVENTION: Utrecht Cranial Shape Quantifier (UCSQ) was used to quantify severity using the variables: asymmetry ratio of frontal peak and ratio of frontal peak gradient. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES(S): The UCSQ variables were combined and related to visual score using Pearson correlation coefficient; UCSQ and visual score were additionally compared to Di Rocco classification by one-way analysis of variance or Kruskal-Wallis test. All measurements were made on computed tomography scans. CONCLUSIONS: Using UCSQ, we can quantify UCS according to severity using characteristics, it outperforms traditional methods and captures the whole skull shape. In future research, we can apply UCSQ to 3D-photogrammetry due to the utilization of external landmarks.