Reflecting on a Foreign Body of the Hard Palate

Foreign bodies of the hard palate in infants are rare and are often misdiagnosed as tumors. To our knowledge there are no reports of foreign bodies of the hard palate presenting to plastic surgeons as a cleft palate. This article describes a patient with a foreign body of the hard palate in a 9-month-old boy misdiagnosed as a cleft palate. While similar patients have been reported in the literature of other specialties, no patients have been reported in the plastic surgery literature to our knowledge. It is important for the plastic surgeon to be aware of foreign bodies of the hard palate and to keep these on one's differential in order to deter the use of unnecessary tests and to decrease the risk of any harm.