 |
|
|
In a typical week, Bonnie Padwa, MD, DMD, chief
of the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Program at Children's Hospital Boston,
performs 15 to 20 wisdom
teeth extractions. While this comprises
a significant part of her practice, the program isn't all about extracting teeth. On any given day, Dr. Padwa might resect an oral tumor, repair a facial fracture, perform jaw
surgery to
correct an underbite
or treat a child
who has a
temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder. In short, her team
provides a full range of services, from the routine to the complex.
One of the more involved
reconstructive procedures that the team offers is distraction osteogenesis (DO) for facial skeleton deformities, which is performed on patients from infancy through young adulthood. During this procedure, a bone is separated into two segments
(osteotomy) and lengthened gradually under tension using a distraction device. The movement of the two pieces of bone results in a gap, where new bone forms. // cont
|
|
