Oral and maxillofacial surgery is a medical specialty that includes diagnostics, prevention. This includes both functional and aesthetic regeneration of diseases, injuries, deformities and changes in shape.
Cranio-maxillofacial surgery ( oral and maxillofacial surgery, or maxillofacial surgery for short) is a medical and surgical specialty whose object is the diagnosis and surgical or therapeutic treatment of diseases, injuries and anomalies concerning the functional and aesthetic aspects of the hard and soft tissues of the cranio-maxillofacial complex, consisting of the skull, face, mouth, upper and lower jaw and neck.
The care of the patient includes all clinical phases, from the diagnosis to the choice of the most appropriate surgical treatment and the follow-up examinations.
The maxillofacial surgeon thus treats patients with conditions such as facial pain or malocclusion, or patients who have suffered a facial injury, for example, or who have a tumor or cysts of the jawbone, as well as functional or aesthetic impairments as a result of a disease in the maxillofacial region. This specialized discipline is wide-ranging.
The spectrum of surgical procedures ranges from invasive, very complicated operations (for example, facial and maxillary reconstructions that also involve very important nerves) to minimally invasive and rather uncomplicated operations.
Here are some examples of the fields of activity of a surgeon specializing in the maxillofacial area:
The most common procedures performed by a maxillofacial surgeon include otoplasty (correction of so-called "protruding ears" or other aesthetic defects of the ears), blepharoplasty (reconstruction or correction of the eyelids), rhinoplasty (correction of the aesthetic and/or functional shape of the nose), and genioplasty (cosmetic surgery of the chin)
