About the Craniofacial Center

The mission of the Craniofacial Center is to provide:

• Patient Care
  The Craniofacial Center provides evaluation and treatment for infants, children, adolescents, and adults with congenital or acquired conditions of the oral cavity, face, and head. The Center's goal is to achieve functional, cosmetic, and psychological normalcy through a team approach to patient care. The Craniofacial Center strives to improve the quality of life for each of its patients.
• Research
  Through basic science research, The Craniofacial Center seeks the causes of craniofacial birth conditions. Clinical studies help to evaluate treatment outcomes and help develop new and better procedures for patient care. The renowned Craniofacial Center Data Bank is one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of craniofacial growth and development information in the world.
• Education
  The Craniofacial Center provides graduate and postgraduate training programs and continuing education courses for medical and dental specialists and allied health professionals. The goal is to increase awareness and knowledge in the care of cleft and craniofacial patients. The Center also sponsors support groups for patients and their families and programs for the general public to educate and raise awareness about craniofacial conditions.

History of the Craniofacial Center

The Craniofacial Center is one of the oldest and largest facilities in the world dedicated to the evaluation and treatment of infants, children, adolescents, and adults with cleft lip and palate and other congenital craniofacial conditions. We also provide rehabilitative care for patients with head and neck cancer and those who have suffered craniofacial trauma. The Center was founded in 1949 by orthodontist Dr. Samuel Pruzansky at The University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago through a grant from the Federal Children's Bureau. Its original mission was to document craniofacial growth in children with cleft lip and palate.

Under Dr. Pruzansky's guidance, The Center's reputation and referral base expanded across the country and around the world. Dr. Pruzansky recognized the multiple and complex needs of patients and developed the team approach to cleft and craniofacial care. He believed in medical and dental specialists and allied health professionals working together in a single location to provide multidisciplinary, comprehensive care. Today, this team approach is the hallmark of The Craniofacial Center and has served as a model for other centers in the US, South America, Europe, and Asia.

Services

The Craniofacial Center is located on the University of Illinois Medical Center campus in a 16,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility. It is part of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery within the Department of Surgery in the College of Medicine. The Center has two clinical components -

• The Cleft/Craniofacial Clinic evaluates and treats patients with congenital craniofacial conditions such as cleft lip and palate, hemifacial microsomia, craniosynostosis, severe jaw discrepancies and malocclusions, and related craniofacial conditions.
• The Maxillofacial Prosthetics Clinic provides oral, facial, eye, and limb prosthetic rehabilitation for craniofacial patients or those who have had head and neck cancer surgery or suffered oral or facial trauma. The entire team cooperates to provide comprehensive care in achieving functional, cosmetic, and psychological normalcy.

Team Approach

Our team meets regularly to establish a care plan for each patient and to review outcomes as treatment progresses. The Craniofacial Center has more than two thousand active patients and receives three hundred new patient referrals annually. Over the years, The Craniofacial Center has treated more than 10,000 patients. We have access to all of the resources of a major urban medical center within a personalized treatment environment.

Education

While patient care is our primary concern, education and research are also important missions. The Center administers predoctoral courses for medical and dental students and postdoctoral training programs in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Craniofacial Orthodontics, Maxillofacial Prosthetics, Dental Laboratory Technology, and Speech and Language Pathology. Our program to train medical artists to make facial prostheses in a clinical setting is the first and only one of its kind in the world. The programs offered at The Craniofacial Center are unique and provide an excellent educational experience. We also conduct continuing education courses so that those already in practice may keep informed of the most current care for their patients.

The Center works closely with several national organizations to provide resources and support for patients with facial differences and their family members. The Craniofacial Center actively participates with AboutFace USA, The Children's Craniofacial Association, FACES, The National Foundation of Ectodermal Dysplasia, the Cleft Palate Foundation, and The Smile Train.

The Craniofacial Center is a member of both the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association (ACPA) and the Illinois Association of Cleft-Craniofacial Teams (IACT) and several of our team members serve as officers in these organizations. The Craniofacial Center follows the team treatment protocols recommended by both of these organizations.

Research and the Craniofacial Center Data Bank

Conducting research to improve the quality of life of patients is a mission of The Craniofacial Center. Research projects in surgical techniques, growth and development, craniofacial rehabilitation, speech and language pathology, audiology, maxillofacial prosthetics, and craniofacial orthodontics are ongoing. For more than fifty years, The Craniofacial Center has been collecting growth and development information for more than ten thousand patients in an effort to continuously improve the quality of care. This research information forms the basis of The Craniofacial Center Data Bank, a world-recognized compilation of craniofacial growth and development data. The information in the Data Bank has served as the basis for more than one thousand articles published in numerous scientific research journals and helps us to continuously improve the quality of our patient care. We also routinely host researchers from the United States and other countries to share this information so that they too may use it to improve the care of their patients. Because The Craniofacial Center is located at The University of Illinois Medical Center, we may take advantage of its resources and state-of-the-art facilities to carry on our research.

Service Around the World

Because of its experience and reputation, The Craniofacial Center often receives requests from other countries to provide patient care and share knowledge and expertise. Our team has made several trips to Guatemala to perform surgery on hundreds of cleft patients who would not otherwise have received care. Several team members traveled to Ecuador to make ear prostheses for children. Each team member donated their time and services and paid their own travel and accommodation expenses. Other members of the Craniofacial Center team have traveled to Belgaum, India to present a series of lectures, perform surgery, and to help establish a local cleft/craniofacial team in conjunction with Smile Train, an international craniofacial support organization. Dr. David Reisberg, director of The Craniofacial Center, has traveled to Cuba with CFC plastic surgeon, Dr. Mimis Cohen where they were invited to lecture and develop craniofacial research protocols at The University of Havana. Dr. Reisberg also was an invited speaker at The 14th National Cuban Congress on Stomatology. The Center continues to receive referrals of patients from around the world. Most recently, we have treated patients from Greece, Columbia, and Ecuador in our University of Illinios at Chicago Medical Center facility.