Study aims to help reconstruct injured faces

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Study aims to help reconstruct injured faces
By Dan Blottenberger, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, December 19, 2009

BAMBERG, Germany — The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is looking for 20 troops with severe facial injuries to take part in a research program that might return their lives to some sort of normalcy.

The Defense Department has awarded a $1.6 million grant to the university to test advanced surgical tools that would help surgeons repair troops’ damaged faces to look like they did before they were injured.

Military medical officials estimate that 26 percent of wounded servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered some kind of facial injury.

Surgeons can rebuild the facial bone structure, but there is still an unmet need in the precise restoration of facial features, according to Dr. J. Peter Rubin, associate professor of plastic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who is leading the research team. The goal of the study, known as the Biomedical Translational Initiative, is to craft the facial tissue back to normal, Rubin said.

The plan is to take fat tissue from another part of the body and use it to restore the wounded facial features. Fat grafting, as it is known, has been used as a cosmetic procedure for decades. But this would be the first time doctors use the technology for reconstructive surgery to accurately restore facial form after battlefield injuries.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66766