Clinical Craniofacial Science: Reconnecting Perspectives Across Craniofacial Interfaces

The craniofacial region represents one of the most anatomically and functionally interconnected areas of the human body. However, despite its inherent continuity, investigation of the craniofacial region often remains fragmented across disciplinary perspectives, including dentistry, oral and maxillofacial surgery, otolaryngology, plastic surgery, neurosurgery, radiology, anatomy, orthopedics, rehabilitation sciences, and related biological sciences. As a result, important craniofacial interfaces and transitional zones may become conceptually isolated across specialties despite their structural and biological interconnectedness. This article proposes the concept of clinical craniofacial science not as a new independent specialty, but as an interface-centered collaborative framework aimed at reconnecting perspectives across craniofacial interfaces and transitional zones. Using representative examples including the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), craniocervical junction, mimetic musculature, fascial systems, retaining ligaments, depressor septi nasi, and Le Fort-related nasal changes, we discuss how disciplinary compartmentalization may create conceptual blind spots in anatomy, imaging interpretation, biomechanics, physiology, pathology, and surgical planning. Many craniofacial questions identified through interdisciplinary clinical integration also raise broader biological questions regarding tissue adaptation, mechanobiology, development, function, and pathologic change. Future progress in clinical craniofacial science will therefore require integration not only across clinical disciplines, but also between translational anatomy and related biological sciences. The craniofacial region should be reconsidered not as a collection of isolated anatomic territories managed independently by separate specialties, but as a continuous network of structural, functional, procedural, and biological interfaces extending across clinical and scientific scales.