Patient Screenings, Odonto-Maxillo-Facial Hospital, Saigon District 1, Hcmc, Vietnam
One-year-old girl held by her smiling mother. She was born with a bilateral cleft lip and cleft palate, and right microphthalmia (small orbit and undeveloped eye).
A typical surgical approach to helping this child would be:
1) to close her cleft lip first, to allow her to speak and eat better, then
2) return a few months later to close her cleft palate (hole in the roof of her mouth) through a more complex surgery, again to enhance speech and eating, plus limit ear, sinus, and respiratory infections,
3) remove the remnant of the existing right eye, perform an orbital (eye socket) reconstruction, and place a fat graft aimed to stimulate growth inside the orbital space,
4) place a "globe prosthesis" (space holder for the eye socket) as the child hopefully grows more over all, and
5) place a customized artificial polymer/acrylic eye, perhaps in time for her to begin school.
There is much hope for this intelligent, happy toddler!
FACE the Challenge, Inc. (FTC) is a humanitarian non-profit organization based in Centennial, Colorado, USA. Its all-volunteer teams and representatives have been traveling to various parts of the world to provide facial reconstructive surgeries free-of-charge.
Since 1994 FTC has been taking specialists to HCMc/Saigon to provide care for those with great needs. These long trips take about 40 hours of flight time (round-trip) and cover about 20,000 miles (round-trip). It still is gratifying and worth all our efforts!
Patient Screenings, Odonto-Maxillo-Facial Hospital, Saigon District 1, Hcmc, Vietnam
One-year-old girl held by her smiling mother. She was born with a bilateral cleft lip and cleft palate, and right microphthalmia (small orbit and undeveloped eye).
A typical surgical approach to helping this child would be:
1) to close her cleft lip first, to allow her to speak and eat better, then
2) return a few months later to close her cleft palate (hole in the roof of her mouth) through a more complex surgery, again to enhance speech and eating, plus limit ear, sinus, and respiratory infections,
3) remove the remnant of the existing right eye, perform an orbital (eye socket) reconstruction, and place a fat graft aimed to stimulate growth inside the orbital space,
4) place a "globe prosthesis" (space holder for the eye socket) as the child hopefully grows more over all, and
5) place a customized artificial polymer/acrylic eye, perhaps in time for her to begin school.
There is much hope for this intelligent, happy toddler!
FACE the Challenge, Inc. (FTC) is a humanitarian non-profit organization based in Centennial, Colorado, USA. Its all-volunteer teams and representatives have been traveling to various parts of the world to provide facial reconstructive surgeries free-of-charge.
Since 1994 FTC has been taking specialists to HCMc/Saigon to provide care for those with great needs. These long trips take about 40 hours of flight time (round-trip) and cover about 20,000 miles (round-trip). It still is gratifying and worth all our efforts!