I am often involved in the repair of orbital fractures, which occur from trauma such as car accidents, falls, and assaults. The orbit is a series of bones that comprise the wall (or socket) that contains the eyeball and other important contents that allow us to see and move our eye in all directions. Parts of the orbit are more prone for injury (such as the floor, which has a paper thin bone that can often break with force that usually doesn’t break other bones in the rest of the body. Such fractures may need to repaired when they result in double vision, difficulty seeing, or deformity of the socket or eye. The surgery involves exploration of the fracture and reparing it. I use various materials to repair the fracture depending on its size and patient factors. Implant materials range from titanium mesh, Medpor implants, and calvarial bone graft (bone graft taken from the calvarium or skull).
Figure 1. CT scan showing a large orbit floor fracture
Figure 3. Intraoperative photo taken showing the repair of the orbital fracture. In this case, the fracture was so large that a titanium mesh with bone graft was used to repair the fracture.
The arrow indicates the mesh being placed into the orbit.
