New Delhi: A 14-month-old Iraqi child with disfigured face successfully underwent a high-risk skull reconstruction surgery here and is recuperating.
The boy spent the first year of his life battling a deformed skull, called Crouzon’s Syndrome with cranial synostosis. This meant that parts of his skull had fused prematurely resulting in a grossly abnormal shape of the skull. Due to the abnormality, the baby’s brain did not have sufficient space to grow causing severe headache.
With time, the child’s eyes began to bulge out as his brain began pushing for space to grow. The child had stopped feeding, sleeping and was visibly suffering from excruciating pain.
“If untreated, this could have also resulted in fatal consequences like permanent damage to the brain, permanent mental disorder, vascular damage to his nerves and other life-shattering health issues, hampering his way of life before it even began. Globally, incidence of Crouzon syndrome is currently estimated to occur in 1.6 out of every 100,000 people,” said Dr Manoj K Johar, Director and Head of Department of Plastic Surgery, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Patparganj.
A team of experts performed the nearly 10-hour-long surgery and reconstructed his skull.
From losing all hope that the child would ever lead a normal life o now looking at visibly healthy baby, the boy’s relative Ghadfer Khaleel Mahmood, said, “Our baby is fine now. Earlier his eyes were bulging out which made him look very different and it really scared us.