Conference Agenda

Background. Cranial morphological assessment is crucial for early diagnosis of skull deformities in newborns, such as craniosynostosis. Typically, severity is evaluated through clinical analysis and imaging techniques, although growing interest focuses on radiation-free 3D surface scanning systems for external cutaneous evaluation. Objective. This study investigates the correlation between skin and underlying skull anthropometric measurements in pediatric patients, assessing the clinical applicability of 3D skin surface use for cranial assessment in both healthy and pathological cases. Method. 70 3D skull and soft tissue meshes were derived from CT scans of newborns (35 healthy, 35 craniosynostosis) acquired at Meyer Children’s Hospital IRCCS. Morphometric parameters including maximum length and width, diagonals at 30° and 150° and cephalic index were extracted from both surfaces and compared through a correlation analysis. Conclusion. The analysis demonstrates significant correlation between cranial and skin measurements, with Pearson correlation coefficients exceeding 0.9 across all parameters, including pathological patients. The systematic differences observed between cutaneous and cranial measurements are consistent with soft tissue thickness. These findings support the clinical applicability of surface scanning for the quantitative assessment of cranial head shape and validate its use as a reproducible, radiation-free alternative to traditional imaging techniques.