This is how children with crooked faces are helped by screws and new surgery

In the clip: Watch and hear the doctor Lars Kölby explain how surgery is done.

Children with unicornis synostosis, a skeletal defect that causes faces to become deformed and crooked, have previously undergone extensive surgery.

- It was a major operation where we were able to move all or parts of the forehead forward, with quite bad results actually, says Lars Kölby, professor of plastic surgery at SU.

But since a few years ago, a new method has been applied.

- My first reaction was that this is too good to be true.

It's easier to do.

It goes faster.

It bleeds less and it gives better results, says Lars Kölby.

Screws every day

A screw is used to force apart the pieces of bone that have grown together.

The process takes a month and the parents of the child become involved as they are the ones who turn the screw a little every day for a month until the face has a chance to become straight.

- We see a deviation of 1.1 degrees after three years in these children.

And it is extremely little, says Lars Kölby, who does not think that these children will notice that they were born with unicorn synostosis when they grow up.

International interest

In the past three years, around 20 children have been operated on with the new method and the results have been reported in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

- I think this will be a big thing, says Lars Kölby.