Ilya’s operation was performed by an American-Ukrainian team at OKHMATDYT.
According to the Centre for Children’s Medicine at OKHMATDYT Hospital, Ilya, who is from Khmelnytsky Oblast, is 11 years old and was born with a whole range of problems.
The boy has a unilateral head anomaly, deformity of facial bones and muscles, a significant change in the anatomy of the oropharynx, the absence of the palate and a complex variant of Pierre Robin syndrome. This is a congenital malformation that is combined with a cleft palate. Children with this disease can be easily recognised by their characteristic signs: cleft palate, underdeveloped lower jaw and often a drooping tongue. The boy’s facial bones were affected not only, but also his ears and dentition.
Ukrainian doctors in Kyiv and Lviv failed to help Ilya. When he was a child, they tried to operate on him in Russia, but the installation of compression and distraction devices not only failed to fix the problem, but also made the situation worse.
Olesya, the boy’s mother, never stopped looking for a solution and found it at the Children’s Medicine Centre, OKHMATDYT Hospital. Leading specialists from the United States – paediatric maxillofacial and plastic surgeons from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia – came here. Together with them, they made a plan for Ilya’s surgery.
It should be reminded that leading maxillofacial surgeons from the USA operated on children with cleft palates at the OKHMATDYT hospital from 26 February to 1 March.
“Our son is a very strong and courageous boy, he patiently endured everything. All his life, the defect prevented Ilya from breathing and eating, but he adapted. It was difficult for him to speak, the sounds came out more through his nose, and not everyone understood him. But we did not give up and sought to save our son, so when we heard about the American mission, we immediately came to Lviv and believed the doctors that they would be able to close the defect,” says Olesya’s mother.
The American-Ukrainian team went into the operating room: surgeons David Lowe, Roman Ogonovsky, Khrystyna Pohranichna, and anaesthetist Volodymyr Mishchuk. The plan was to form the palate from the patient’s own tissues, namely from his cheek. The surgeons managed to restore the anatomy. From the cheek flap, they formed a full-fledged palate, which will continue to grow with the guy. The doctors worked like jewellers and used every millimetre of the cheek tissue.
“Everything has taken root well. Next, the patient will have to undergo rehabilitation and adaptation to new normal conditions, i.e. Ilya will be able to breathe and eat easier, and his speech should improve,” the OKHMATDYT noted.