When Christine Piff gets up in the morning, she takes a shower, has breakfast and then cleans her face. An unremarkable procedure, except that she removes her face piece by piece before cleaning it. Afterwards, she clips it back on, puts on her make-up and gets ready to start work.
Piff had facial cancer 17 years ago. Surgery and years of radiotherapy have left her with a hollow from her left eyebrow to the jaw bone below. The severity of the disfigurement means reconstructive surgery is unlikely to work and a false face or prosthesis is the most likely solution. But over the years, prostheses have proved troublesome. Like many other patients, she was given one attached to her glasses over the bridge of the nose. It was uncomfortable, Piff says, but worse still: ‘It meant that when I took my glasses off my face came off with them.’ She tried a lighter prosthesis stuck on with glue, but it fell off the first time she used it. She went back to the glasses attachment.
Three years ago, Piff had five titanium screws implanted in the remaining bone of her face. The heads of the screws protrude through the skin and, in a second operation, tiny titanium posts were attached to each one. Three separate prostheses clip onto the titanium posts with fasteners like press studs. The cosmetic effect is so good that even fairly close acquaintances are unaware that half of her face comes off at night.
NATURAL BONDING
The key to the success of Piff’s prosthesis is the interaction between natural bone and titanium. Bone grows into the…
