The pursuit of symmetry in cranio-facial surgery.

THE introduction of cranio-facial surgery has enabled a number of hideous facial deformities to be corrected but at the same time new problems have been created and not all the old ones solved. The problems created by cranio-facial surgery are such secondary deformities as enophthalmos and lagophthalmos, ptosis and canthal drift. The problems unsolved by cranio-facial surgery, although it has made their solution possible, are as old as plastic surgery itself: reconstruction of a severely deformed nose. These problems are particularly difficult when the deformity is asymmetrical; the following 4 cases illustrate some of them and the means used to try to solve them.