Our features are a sign of identity and give intensity to our character. But, in certain cases, they can cause physical and even psychological problems. As Dr. Federico Hernández Alfaro, director of the Maxillofacial Institute of the Teknon Medical Center and professor at the International University of Catalonia, explains: “When the facial alteration involves the chewing bones (maxilla and mandible), in addition to an aesthetic problem (a face that is too far from normal can stigmatize the person and make him or her less acceptable to society), we will have a functional alteration of occlusion, breathing and phonation”. In these cases, treatment is essential to improve health and gain quality of life. And this is where oral and maxillofacial surgery comes in.
This specialty offers solutions to treat alterations in oral esthetics, such as missing teeth, and facial esthetics, usually caused by trauma, tumors, salivary gland pathologies, alterations of the temporomandibular joint, etc.
Specifically, “orthognathic surgery is responsible for changing the shape, size and position of the different bones that make up the face and that determine our appearance. To achieve this, at the Maxillofacial Institute of Centro Medico Teknon we use minimally invasive techniques, which allow us to operate on patients with small incisions in the mouth, in very short times and with very short postoperative periods. These characteristics have made orthognathic surgery increasingly in demand and we currently perform an average of 150 operations of this type each year,” adds Dr. Hernández Alfaro.