[The influence of autogenous bone graft in cleft palate on maxillary growth: an experiment study in rats]

This study was designed to investigate the influence of autogenous bone graft in cleft palate on maxillary growth in rats.

Forty Wistar strain male rats aged 4 weeks were randomly divided into four groups. Each group had 10 rats. Group 1 was the unoperated control group. Group 2 had a surgically created cleft palate but unrepaired. Group 3 also had a surgically created cleft palate which followed by a two-flap palatoplasty repair immediately. Group 4(experimental group) also had a surgically created cleft palate, but the cleft palate was reconstructed by autogenous rib graft with two-flap repair. All animals were sacrificed on the 10th week after operation. The data were analyzed using SPSS. And one-way ANOVA was used for comparison of the four groups.

The experimental group was significantly smaller than unoperated control group and cleft palate group in the maxillary widths variables, length variables (AD),height variables(P<0.01).Except rats in the experimental group had significantly greater posterior palate width than rats in two-flap repair group(P<0.01),there were no significant difference between the two procedures in maxillary growth variables(P>0.05).But the experimental group was smaller in the maxillary heights, length variables than the two-flap group.

These findings showed that repair of the cleft palate by autogenous rib graft had positive effect on preventing the contraction of maxillary width. But in the maxillary anteroposterior and vertical development, the experimental group possibly had more severe retardation than two-flap repair group.