To provide comprehensive care for children with craniofacial disorders, doctors of the Kanchi Kamakoti CHILDS Trust Hospital have started a Craniofacial Clinic.
Craniofacial disorders involve the head and face of the children, and they are affected with severe breathing difficulty, speech and vision problems.
“We have been performing surgeries for craniofacial disorders since 1991. This cannot be done by doctors of a single speciality. The children will need correction of the head, nose, teeth and eyes. Now, Doctors of various specialities including neurosurgery, dentistry, ENT, ophthalmology and anaesthesia have come together. We will see children individually throughout the week and later, plan the treatment,” S. Ramesh, head of department, Anaesthesiology, told reporters on Saturday.
B. Chidambaram, neurosurgeon, said earlier, they received 10 to 12 children with craniofacial disorders a year. “We see 50 to 60 children with the disorder per year. There are no definite reasons for the disorder but in some cases, it is genetic. The first thing is to restore normal brain growth and then normal facial growth. The face of these children will be small, so the air passages will be small and they would not be able to breathe properly,” he said.
Dr. Ramesh said how early the surgical correction is done is important. “Three months to nine months is the ideal time for surgery. One of our youngest patients was two-and-a-half-month old,” he said.
While a neurosurgeon corrects the skull deformity first to allow normal brain and skull development, midface advancement by internal or external distractors are done by a maxillofacial surgeon. Ophthalmic problems such as protrusion of eyeballs, squint and poor vision may also arise, while there could be problems of poorly developed upper jaw requiring intervention by specialists.
Doctors emphasised that the surgery for craniofacial disorders was not cosmetic but is reconstructive and needed to restore normalcy of brain and body growth.
