Facial make over with Lip revision and Bony repair for Cleft Patients
Facial aesthetic surgery with Lip revision for Cleft Patients
In India every year many children are born with multiple defects, be it facial clefts or any other physical deformity. The sheer lack of awareness keeps these patients away from proper treatment for many years. This causes them multiple defects be it their self-confidence, speech or any other problems, which can be resolved by lip revision surgery.
One such patient visited our center today. She is a pretty 19-year-old girl who aspires to go abroad for higher studies. She told us that she belongs to a small village in the interiors of Tamilnadu and her parents are daily wage laborers. She was born with cleft lip and palate deformity. Her treatment was done very late as her parents were not aware of the treatment modalities. Only the basic cleft lip & palate surgery was done. She wanted to improve her looks as well as her speech. The presurgical workup was done for her and treatment was devised. Her backward placed maxilla was to be brought forward and her lip needed revision. The investigations were done and she was cleared for surgery. We planned to do an anterior maxillary distraction procedure for her, by which the upper jaw could be pulled forward and a lip revision was also done. The distractor device was placed in her mouth pre-surgically. It was custom made for her. The surgery took approximately 1 hour after which she remained in our care. She was advised soft diet post surgery for a few weeks. The distraction process began after 5 days and was done until we achieved a positive overjet. Anterior maxillary distraction is a newer procedure and is faster and safer. The patient was a quicker post-operative recovery period.
It is important for patients suffering from any deformity be it facial or otherwise to be detected as early as possible and treatment rendered. The delay in treatment is an indicator of poor outcome. Like our patient who wasn’t aware of the needed treatment, there are many in India, who due to lack of awareness aren’t receiving the needful care. For cleft patients, the basic surgery isn’t enough, they require many adjuvant surgeries in order to improve their quality of living. We at Richardson hospital conduct many awareness camps in Tamil Nadu to spread awareness and knowledge as well as to educate the population about these defects and their probable treatment outcomes.
Read More about cleft lip revision surgery from NCBI