Dear Editor,
We read with interest the article of M eng et al. regarding the use of a temporary titanium screw for fixation and alignment of sagittal mandibular condylar fractures. The technique is easy, inexpensive and provides a several advantages when performing surgery. The temporary screw can be used as a holder during fracture reduction facilitating both drilling and fixation. The temporary screw technique though, has already been described as ‘anchor screw’ and the authors did not mention it in their work.
We systematically employ anchor screws in craniofacial surgery. The screw is a valuable tool when dealing with comminuted fractures of the facial skeleton. Bone fragments sometimes are extremely mobile or tenaciously fixed to the surrounding tissues so that effective reduction can be difficult to achieve.
The screw, once inserted into the bone fragment, can be seized allowing fragment repositioning to accomplish reduction and fixation ( Figs. 1 and 2 ).
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