Bone grafting of alveolar cleft region in cleft lip and palate patients

Abstract

As the orthodontic treatment for the cleft palate patients has been advanced and the level of treatment results has become higher, bone grafts into the alveolar cleft region have been popular in these days, as a part of cleft lip and palate total treatment. Timing of bone grafts into the cleft palate region has mainly two stages. One is elementary school years (the mixed dentition stage) for the purpose of tooth movement into the cleft area. Another purpose of bone graft is for the stability after the orthodontic treatment or for alveolar plastic preparation for the prosthetic treatment. Donor sites of these grafts have been iliac bone in many cases. In our department, the mandibular third molar area has been chosen as a donor site. However, for those cases in which enough bone volume can not be obtained from the mandibular third molar area, allograft is currently supplied from the institute of Aich Bone and Soft tissue Transplant Promotion Foundation after informed consent is fully explained to those patients. Some informations of a statistic survey regarding bone graft donor sites for the alveolar cleft region are reported.