Military plastic surgeons perform reconstructive surgeries for various congenital, oncologic, and traumatic craniofacial injuries or deformities. Recently, our Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Plastic Surgery team was tasked to care for a woman who bravely sought a new and better life in the United States after she suffered amputation of her nose and bilateral ears while in her home...

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is characterized by recurrent upper airway obstruction occurring at the level of the pharynx during sleep. Although cephalometric analysis is an important method in the diagnosis of craniofacial deformities, CT and magnetic resonance imaging have been highlighted as the major imaging methods to investigate the possible causes of OSA, which, in most cases, is multif...

Expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) has been extensively used for facial soft tissue augmentation procedures, and is regarded as safe and reliable and suitable as a permanent implant. This implant is generally used in the lower third of the face for lips filling, nasal augmentation, nasolabial folds and chin augmentation, and rarely for congenital or acquired depressed deformities of the f...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Craniofacial surgery for craniosynostosis is one of the most challenging reconstructive procedures. Restoration of particular functional and anatomic requirements is important for development from infancy to adulthood. The purpose of this study is to present the authors' experience of craniofacial surgery for management of patients with craniosynostosis in Srinagarind H...

The purpose of this study was to design a better craniofacial classification system for bony deformities in patients with hemifacial microsomia than the existing ones. It was meant to incorporate the deformity of the craniofacial skeleton other than that of the mandible. The "Mandibular Deformity Scoring" System (MDS), the "Cranial Deformity Scoring" System (CDS), the the "Craniofacial Deformit...

The planar cell polarity effector gene Fuz regulates ciliogenesis and Fuz loss of function studies reveal an array of embryonic phenotypes. However, cilia defects can affect many signaling pathways and, in humans, cilia defects underlie several craniofacial anomalies. To address this, we analyzed the craniofacial phenotype and signaling responses of the Fuz(-/-) mice. We demonstrate a unique ro...

Positional skull deformities may be present at birth or may develop during the first few months of life. Since the early 1990s, US pediatricians have seen an increase in the number of children with cranial asymmetry, particularly unilateral flattening of the occiput, likely attributable to parents following the American Academy of Pediatrics “Back to Sleep” positioning recommendations aimed at ...

The face is a reflection of our genome. Facial deformities are oftentimes harbingers of an underlying disease states. For example, decreased Hedgehog activity in the developing craniofacial region causes holoprosencephaly and close-set eyes (hypotelorism). We found that excessive Hedgehog activity, caused by truncating the primary cilia on cranial neural crest cells, led to hypertelorism and fr...