Children in need of maxillofacial surgery require expert, individualized treatment that focuses on their specific needs as they grow. The team of surgeons at the Maxillofacial Institute specializes in infant, juvenile and adolescent surgery, and can treat both congenital malformations (present at birth) and acquired problems.

What does the surgery consist of?

Pediatric maxillofacial surgery encompasses oral, facial and craniofacial surgery of children and adolescents. The surgery performed can help correct a wide variety of congenital disorders and acquired problems, reconstructing any acquired craniofacial defects, correcting congenital deformities and restoring facial expression. The goal of pediatric maxillofacial surgery is to restore the normal appearance and normal function of the facial organs.

Oral surgery

Sometimes children need dental extractions due to malposition, ankylosis or dental cysts. The institute’s team offers both surgical and conservative oral pathology care.

Frenulum surgery

Children can suffer from lingual and labial frenulum problems when these are too short. This problem is associated with difficulty in correct speech and phonation, malposition or mobilization of the teeth or difficulty in the correct location of the teeth in the dental arch.

By means of small surgical interventions of very short duration and with local anesthesia, these problems are solved, which could have major repercussions for the child in adulthood.

Childhood trauma

Facial trauma is more frequent in children around 1-2 years of age, when the child begins to walk, and between 8-10 years of age. The anatomical structure of the child differs from that of the adult, so an expert team of maxillofacial surgeons is required.

Facial trauma can affect only the soft tissues or the bones as well, so it can sometimes require a variety of treatments to restore their normal constitution.

Our surgical team is expert in soft tissue and skin repair as well as in bone remodeling and the use of grafts to reconstruct normal facial structure. Associated injuries are common in severe facial trauma. If a facial fracture is diagnosed in a child, it is very likely that there is also a concomitant head injury. Ophthalmologic injuries are also frequent in periorbital fractures. For these reasons, multidisciplinary post-traumatic care is important.

Congenital malformations

Cleft lip and palate are the most frequent congenital facial malformations. They are due to an alteration in facial development. To treat these patients correctly, the treatment should be carried out by a multidisciplinary team and they should be treated from birth, since they require special attention.

Fortunately, the defects are surgically correctable by maxillofacial surgeons: lip (cheilorrhaphy), palate (palatoplasty, veloplasty), alveolus (bone grafting), nose (rhinoseptoplasty), etc.. These surgeries are essential for the correct function of speech and swallowing, good facial appearance and social adaptation of the child. Each anatomical structure has an optimal age of surgical correction depending on their development, so the continued monitoring of these patients is essential.

Pediatric reconstructive and restorative maxillofacial surgery

Pediatric maxillofacial and reconstructive surgery encompasses a wide variety of cosmetic procedures to improve appearance. These procedures include rhinoplasty (nose surgery), blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery), orthoplasty (repositioning of prominent ears) and orthognathic surgery (correction of the jaw for divergence or bite problems and genioplasty (chin repositioning surgery).

Scar correction

Our multidisciplinary team can use a variety of procedures to reduce the appearance of scars, including keloids.

Pediatric Oncology

Tumors in the maxillofacial region in the pediatric patient are usually benign in nature, but the malignancy of the process must always be ruled out and adequate treatment must be ensured. In the case of confirmation of a malignant process, a multidisciplinary approach is essential.

In addition, childhood neoplasms have been gaining importance, leading to improvements in the treatment of childhood cancer, reaching long-term survival rates of even 90% in some tumors, which means that this type of population requires greater medical-health care at all levels. Among the side effects of cancer treatment, oral manifestations are a frequent cause of discomfort, usually due to caries, gingivitis and poor hygiene.

Sleep apnea

Like adults, children and young adults can suffer from infantile sleep apnea. In infants the main cause of sleep apnea is prematurity, but any anatomical obstruction of the airway can cause sleep apnea, such as the presence of retrognathia, macroglossia, adenoid hypertrophy, nasal septum deviation, among others. The patient with sleep apnea requires a comprehensive and experienced study, such as the one we perform at the Maxillofacial Institute.

Temporomandibular joint

In the presence of a penetrating pain in front of the ear that sometimes radiates to the temporal or cervical level, we should always rule out pathologies at the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) level. In the child patient, pain in this joint may be secondary to growth, but we always advise ruling out any underlying pathology in the joint, either secondary to bruxism, or due to some anatomical malformation or neoformation, etc.