Seng Ly (also written Sengly) was born in Cambodia with a venous malformation on his upper lip. The mass grew with him. By age three it blocked speech, made eating hard, and narrowed his nasal airway. Local care could not remove it.

Little Baby Face Foundation, a New York charity founded in 2002 by facial plastic surgeon Thomas Romo to bring children with facial birth defects for free surgery, accepted the case. Seng Ly and his mother flew to the city in May 2024. Treatment lasted twelve weeks and included four procedures: laser to thicken skin for later reconstruction, excision of the malformation, then operations to lift an upper lip that had inverted into the mouth and to reshape excess skin at the lip and nose. Recovery after excision meant days of liquids and round-the-clock pain medicine. The foundation listed his treatment as complete in its 2024 review.

A venous malformation is a tangle of dilated veins present from birth. It is not a cancer. On the lip it can bleed, swell, and distort the airway. Surgery and laser are standard when the lesion threatens function; sclerotherapy is used in other sites. The after photographs—a boy in a yellow shirt and party hat, smiling without the dark mass—are the foundation’s own follow-up images.

The Spanish caption is essentially the charity’s published timeline. What it does not change is the medical fact: a vascular lesion large enough to steal a toddler’s smile and breath was taken off in staged operations, and a child went home able to eat and be photographed without hiding his mouth.

Sources

• Little Baby Face Foundation: “Seng Ly’s Journey with Venous Malformation”; 2024 Year in Review
• GuideStar / foundation patient list: Sengly from Cambodia, vascular tumor, New York treatment
• Foundation mission pages: pro bono travel and multi-stage facial reconstruction for international children