| GEO Health | | Doctors cure woman with "sunken face" | Updated at: 1519 PST, Tuesday, May 18, 2010
XI'AN: Doctors have successfully performed the last of seven operations on a 22-year-old Chinese woman born with a rare facial-deformity.
Wang Na received a dental implant Monday and then ate a solid piece of food, part of a biscuit, for the first time in her life, said Zhao Yimin, head of the hospital of stomatology under the Fourth Military Medical University in Xi'an, the provincial capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
The woman from Heyang County will also be able to speak more clearly after receiving training at the hospital, Zhao added.
Wang was missing the upper jaw bone and teeth when she was born. Her cheekbones are not well developed, either.
"The middle part of her face looked sunken. To our knowledge, she had the most serious case of facial deformity in the world," Zhao said.
The doctors spent four years performing the seven surgeries and covered all the expenses, estimated at hundreds of thousands of yuan.
"We first pulled forward her cheekbones with a support, and then transplanted her upper jaw bone from a section of bone cut from her lower leg," he said.
Because of Wang's abnormal face, she was abandoned soon after she was born, according to Wang's foster mother, Li Jingyun.
"Wang couldn't speak clearly or eat solid food. She seldom made friends and never looked into the mirror," Li said, adding that she and her husband had spent all their money to treat Wang before they were introduced to Zhao's hospital in 2006. |  |
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