When Mustafa Awad was born, his parents saw there was something different about his face: it was concave.
With age, his eyes bulged out and he developed difficulty in breathing, and also suffered from sleep apnea.
The Iraqi boy suffered from a rare congenital condition called Crouzon Syndrome, which caused his facial bones to fuse earlier than normal. This made it difficult for him to chew, swallow or speak.
With a procedure called distraction osteogenesis, doctors at Balaji Dental and Cranofacial Hospital released the compression on his eyelids and “moved his face forward,” said S.M. Balaji, director of the hospital.
A device called Kawamoto Distractor was inserted into Mustafa’s skull. His facial bones were expanded by 1 mm every day, for 17 days, until his face reached near-normal proportions.
“After three months, he will have to come in for a review, after which the distractor will be removed. Since Mustafa is 14 and his facial bones are almost adult-sized, he will not have to repeat the procedure again,” said Dr. Balaji.