INSTRUMENTAL MAXILOFACIAL

OVERVIEW, MAXILLOFACIAL SURGERY PROTOCOL

DEFINITION

Maxillofacial surgery is the medical-surgical specialty that deals with the prevention, study, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of the pathology of the mouth, face, and craniofacial territory, as well as the cervical organs and structures directly or indirectly related to them.

Working in a very complex anatomical territory, the specialty encompasses a wide variety of procedures. The maxillofacial surgeon performs everything from wisdom teeth extractions or dental implant placement, to aesthetic, oncological, and reconstructive surgery.

This specialty is closely related to plastic surgery, neurosurgery, and otorhinolaryngology, with which it works closely, overlapping in some aspects, as well as with orthodontic and prosthodontic dental specialties.

The maxillofacial surgeon deals with facial traumatology problems, cleft lip and palate, oral, craniofacial and cervical oncology, skull base, reconstructive surgery, facial aesthetic surgery, salivary gland pathology (benign and malignant tumors, calculi, etc.), craniofacial deformities (from mild dentofacial deformities to large malformation syndromes), cervicofacial infectious pathology (facial and cervical phlegmons and abscesses), oral implantology (placement and rehabilitation of osseointegrated dental implants), impacted third molars (wisdom teeth), or impacted canines, maxillary cysts, oral mucosal pathology, and temporomandibular joint pathology (craniomandibular dysfunction), among others.

CLASSIFICATION OF MAXILLOFACIAL SURGERY

  • Orthognathic surgery: specifically deals with diagnosing and surgically treating dentofacial disharmonies such as prognathism (exaggeratedly large jaw), open bite (inability to close the mouth due to premature molar contact or maxillary and mandibular malformations).
  • Facial trauma: involves structures of soft tissues, teeth, alveolar bones, and facial bones, causing fractures, tissue and dental organ losses.
  • Ontogenic distraction: corrects deformities of more than 1cm, when the jaws are narrow, showing crowding of the teeth and black spaces in the smiles.
  • Oncological surgery: deals with resecting benign and malignant tumors of the head and neck.
  • Aesthetic surgery: facelift or rhytidectomy, blepharoplasty, mentoplasty or genioplasty, rhinoplasty and septoplasty, otoplasty.
  • Reconstructive facial surgery: treats the sequelae from tumors and tumor pathologies.
  • Oral surgery: treats everything related to implants, resection of cysts, and impacted teeth.
  • TMJ surgery: treats congenital and acquired pathologies in the temporomandibular joint.
Classification of Maxillofacial Instruments.