A NEW METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION OF THE LIP

Successful reconstruction of a lip is a difficult and intriguing problem. The addition of a new operation to the remarkably long list of operations proposed in the past can be justified only if the new procedure proves to possess added advantages and fewer disadvantages than its predecessors. In reviewing the literature, about sixty-five different methods for this operation were discovered, and this new procedure is described because it possesses the advantages of simplicity, cosmetic fidelity to the normal in its results, noninterference with muscle and nerve supply and production of nearly normal function, and is applicable to restoration of either the upper or the lower lip.

Before this problem can be successfully adjudged, its factors must be analyzed, and the obvious first step is a review of the anatomic structures about the mouth together with their physiologic action. Of these structures, the musculature is the most pertinent to our problem.