Management of Rare Craniofacial Anomalies With Soft Tissue Reconstruction on Humanitarian Missions

Abstract

In poor communities, patients may suffer from health problems requiring special management that cannot be provided locally because of lack of equipment and/or expertise. Children with craniofacial anomalies represent one of these challenging problems. Visiting medical missionary teams have attempted to address these issues for a long time. This article highlights healthcare difficulties in one of the third-world countries with personally based trials for providing free surgeries in tough situation and with hardly available diagnostic and therapeutic facilities. During 15 years, >5000 surgeries were performed in repeated missionary visits. The majority of operations were to correct post-burn complications or to repair cleft lip and/or palate. Of 33 cases of rare craniofacial anomalies, 14 patients were treated with simple soft tissue reconstruction without interference in the underlying bone deformities. This may not be optimal; however, it can give good results even with the limited resources.