A SIX-YEAR-OLD boy who suffered serious burns in a camping accident has been spared further operations, thanks to a new method for creating a mask to reduce facial scarring.

William Terry-Wright wears a mask created using digital camera technology. Such masks, known as facial splints, reduce scarring, but in the past an operation under general anaesthetic had been required to create one.

Dimensional Imaging, a Glasgow-based company, has developed a technique in which a camera captures simultaneously four images of the patient’s face in a single photographic flash. The images are sent to a computer, which matches up the left and right sides of the face and creates a 3-D image. The data are then transferred to a milling machine, which builds the model for the patient’s facial mask using plaster of Paris.

Patients only remove the mask to eat, as the heat and pressure the mask puts on the face help to lighten and soften scar tissue and protect facial grafts.

William, from Birmingham, suffered 25 per cent burns in a camping accident last year. He spent several weeks in intensive care and underwent skin grafts after the fire.

The new digital camera technology has spared him the pain of undergoing another potentially dangerous operation in order to create his facial splint.

His delighted mother Sue, a healthcare researcher, said: “It has been a great relief to have a new process. When somebody has been burnt, especially a child, an operation is a very painful and invasive procedure and to be able to avoid going back into theatre and have another general anaesthetic is fantastic.”

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