One kilo and four hundred grams is the weight of a maxillary bone neoplasm removed from the face of Angelo (38 years old) by the teacher’s team Alessandro Bajdirector of the UOC of Maxillofacial Surgery of the IRCCS Galeazzi-Sant’Ambrogio di Milan.
The highly aggressive yet benign tumor was diagnosed more than twenty years ago and was growing dramatically to the point of compromising the mouth, jaw, oral cavity and making it almost impossible for Angelo to swallow, eat and breathe.
“We are facing a bone neoplasm whose causes must be sought in genetics. The tissue of origin is that of the dental enamelwhich undergoes an aberration during its development, which is followed by a transcription error in the DNA that our body’s correction systems cannot fix,” says Alessandro Baj.
The exceptional nature of the operation, which lasted 8 hours, required careful planning that was carried out thanks to the use of state-of-the-art technologies and the 3d print which made it possible to reproduce the skeleton of the patient’s head and then virtually simulate the intervention. All the components used in the operating room, from the screws to the plates, have been custom designed,
“It is a demanding and complex operation, also given the considerable size of the mass, but it presents a low possibility of complications, especially in young patients, as in this case”, adds Professor Baj. “The success rate is very high, however there may be a recurrenceso the postoperative follow-up will be 5 years, exactly as it happens with some malignant tumors”.