Post-traumatic deformity correction

What are post-traumatic deformities?

Sometimes a variety of reasons may have resulted in a less-than-ideal outcome from your injuries and surgery before you reach me. Perhaps your surgery was delayed due to you being otherwise unwell. Perhaps the fractures were very badly displaced and a perfect result was never achievable. This may mean that the fractures have healed in a suboptimal position, resulting in a malunion of the fractures. Depending on where these fractures are, they may result in persistent alteration of the bite (malocclusion), double vision, facial asymmetry and/or difficulty with mouth opening.

What are the possible solutions to this?

Sometimes we can camouflage the deformity and this may be the simplest option. This may involve placing onlay implants such as MEDPOR® (porous polyethylene) through hidden incisions within the mouth to recontour the bone. Camouflage may also involve soft tissue techniques such as autologous fat grafting (e.g. harvesting fat from the abdomen through a technique like liposuction and transferring it to the areas of asymmetry. On other occasions, this may involve re-breaking the bones in a controlled fashion within the operating theatre under general anaesthesia (asleep) and then fixing them in a more optimal position. The technique will be carefully chose and bespoke for you, planned with Virtual Surgical Planning (VSP) with industry leaders in the field.

Are there any risks to this surgery?

The risks are not dissimilar to surgery the first time around and can include pain, swelling, bleeding, infection, need for subsequent removal of any implants, temporary or permanent nerve injury and need for subsequent revision surgery.