Saikat Pal, before and after the corrective surgery

Saikat Pal?s overbite caused him endless anguish. His friends and family members taunted him and he began to avoid them, although he is only 18. But a rare reconstructive surgery has raised his self-esteem quite a few notches after the shape of his upper jaw was corrected.

A team of doctors, led by Anirban Sengupta of Salt Lake Dental Foundation and Research Centre, undertook the bone plate surgery. It wasn?t an easy task. Once the upper jaw was extracted out of the mouth following surgery, the doctors first measured how much the jaw had to be lowered. Then, a portion of the bone at the jaw?s rear end was chiselled out.

This was followed by a small cut on the premolar region of the upper jaw, from where a small piece of bone was extracted and then fitted to the re-shaped jaw with the help of an absorbable bone plate. Thereby, the forward thrust of Saikat?s upper jaw was reduced by almost 50 mm.

Saikat?s case marks a new era of corrective surgery in the orofacial region and it holds out hope for those who have difficulty eating because their teeth jut out.

?After visiting doctors to find out if surgery could set right Saikat?s face, I stumbled upon Dental Foundation and Research Centre. The rest is a happy story,? said Saikat?s father Kashinath, at their Chinsurah home.

?Earlier, patients had no alternative but to go in for a wire casing to correct deformed jaws. In Saikat?s case, we studied the deformity, measured it and then fed the data into computers to find out how much compression could be achieved and how the patient would look after surgery,? said Sengupta.

The case study has been sent to the School of Maxilo-Facial Surgery, Adelaide University, considered one of the world?s top corrective surgery facilities.

?We?ll also publish the case study, since it was a rare surgery and could prove to be important,? said Subhas Chakrabarty of the Journal of Indian Medical Association.

For those badly in need, there is a 24-hour helpline at Salt Lake Dental Foundation and Research Centre: 9836247991.