THE CRANIOFACIAL CENTER  - 60 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE (1949 – 2009)

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. The Center also provides rehabilitative care for patients with head and neck cancer and facial injuries. The goals of the staff of The Craniofacial Center are to provide functional, cosmetic, and psychosocial normalcy through a comprehensive team approach of patient care. We strive to improve the quality of life for each of its patients.

The Craniofacial Center was founded in 1949 at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago under the auspices of the Federal Children's Bureau. Its initial mission was to document craniofacial growth in children with cleft lip and palate. The Center's founder, Dr. Samuel Pruzansky, an orthodontist, was a pioneer in this field. Under Dr. Pruzansky's guidance, the Center's reputation grew and its referral base expanded. The Center's mission also expanded to include patient care, in addition to education and research. Dr. Pruzansky recognized the multiple and complex needs of patients with craniofacial anomalies. By 1960, he implemented the TEAM approach to cleft and craniofacial care. Medical and dental specialists and allied health professions joined together to provide interdisciplinary, comprehensive care in a single location. Today, this TEAM approach is the hallmark of the Craniofacial Center and has served as a model for other Centers.

The Craniofacial Center offers all the resources of a large academic medical center within a comfortable and friendly environment where patients are evaluated and treated. The Center’s team members include specialists in:

Members of the team meet regularly to establish short and long-term treatment plans for each patient and to review care progress. Over the years, more than twenty thousand patients were treated at the Center. The Center has more than 1,500 active patients and receives 500 new patient referrals annually. 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 follows the team treatment protocols recommended by both of these organizations. Several team members serve as officers in these organizations.

Members of the Center also work closely with national organizations such as AboutFace USA, The Children's Craniofacial Association, FACES, The National Foundation of Ectodermal Dysplasia, the Cleft Palate Foundation, and The Smile Train to provide resources and support for patients with facial differences and their family members. Members of our team travel each year to various countries around the world to provide volunteercare and perform surgery on underprivileged children with clefts and other birth defects. We also provide education to local physicians and health professionals with lectures and demonstrations of surgical procedures.

The Craniofacial Center has long been a leader in new and innovative procedures for cleft and craniofacial patient care. Surgeons, dentists and other health providers of the Center pioneered procedures in cleft palate repair, craniofacial surgery, and craniofacial orthopedics and has been a leader in the use of distraction osteogenesis, osseointegrated implants for oral and facial rehabilitation and orthognathic surgery.

The Craniofacial Center was chosen as one of the original sites for testing to obtain FDA approval for the use of osseointegrated implants to retain an artificial eye, nose or ear.  In addition to this extensive implant program, The Center also has a widely recognized program using these implants to retain a bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA).

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 were patients with congenital craniofacial conditions such as cleft lip and palate, hemifacial microsomia, craniosynostosis, severe jaw discrepancies and malocclusions, and related craniofacial conditions are evaluated and treated.
  
  
• 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. Services include obturators, palatal augmentations, palatal lifts and related prostheses to restore missing parts of the jaw, palate, and teeth to restore normal speech, eating, and appearance. Also provided are prosthetic services to replace missing eyes, ears, nose, or limbs. The Clinic has an extensive program utilizing osseointegrated implants in conjunction with oral or facial prostheses.

While patient care is a primary concern, education and research are also important missions of The Craniofacial Center. 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. The Center also offers continuing education courses so that those already in practice may keep informed of the most current care for their patients.

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. 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 in an effort to continuously improve the quality of patient 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 to continuously improve patient care.

The Craniofacial Center offers comprehensive, interdisciplinary care in a patient friendly environment. Major medical insurance is accepted. The Center works closely with all carriers to maximize benefits for patients. The Craniofacial welcomes referrals or inquires from physicians, surgeons, dentists, allied health care professionals, or health care service agencies.

Educational Programs, Contact:
David J. Reisberg, DDS, Director
Professor, Department of Surgery
The Craniofacial Center
The University of Illinois Medical Center
811 S. Paulina Street, MC 588
Chicago, Illinois 60612
312.996.6933
Fax: 312.355.4173
dreisber@uic.edu

New site (under construction) for The Craniofacial Center.
Please stop back on Monday, January 18, 2010 to visit.

Patient Contact:
Terri Kaisling, MBA, RN
E-Mail: tkaislin@uic.edu
Phone: (312) 996-7546
Fax: (312) 413-1157