Shanghai-Kashgar Link: Shanghai Experts Bring New Hope to a 14-Year-Old Kazakh Teen with a Rare Disease

At noon on July 15, a remote consultation spanning Shanghai and Xinjiang was launched. Wang Xudong, President of Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, and Zhang Jun, a member of Shanghai's 12th batch of Xinjiang aid cadres, Vice President of Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital and President of Kashgar Prefecture Second People's Hospital, led experts including Zhu Min and Cai Ming from the Department of Oral and Craniomaxillofacial Surgery, Zhang Ruhong and Wang Wei from the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and Zhang Zhihua from the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. Together with Cao Jian's team working at Kashgar's Second People's Hospital, they discussed an individualized treatment plan for a 14-year-old Kazakh patient with severe hemifacial microsomia, a rare disease.

Diagnosed since infancy with the most severe subtype of the condition, the child also has mandibular developmental deficiency, microtia and facial nerve injury, and two previous surgeries produced poor results. Considering the long journey to Shanghai, the hospital drew on the Shanghai-Kashgar assistance mechanism to arrange imaging screening, oral assessment, hearing tests and 3D-printed dental and jaw models at Kashgar's Second People's Hospital. The Shanghai and Kashgar experts finalized a staged sequential surgical plan to be implemented in phases, covering orthognathic and microsurgical skeletal reconstruction, ear malformation repair and facial nerve function restoration.