Summary
Cleft lip and palate is the world’s most prevalent head and neck malformation, within which, nonsyndromic is the most frequent. Patients with this malformation in many cases present maxillary hypoplasia. Maxillary distraction osteogenesis through a rigid external distractor constitutes an alternative to correct this skeletal deficiency. The objective of this study was to describe facial changes and their stability over time in non-syndromic cleft lip and palate patients undergoing distraction osteogenesis through rigid external distractor. An electronic search was carried out in PubMed database, Epistemonikos, EBSCO, BEIC and The Cochrane Library through the keywords cleft palate; cleft lip and palate; distraction osteogenesis; osteodistraction; callotasis; callotases; callus distraction, maxillary hypoplasia; midface hypoplasia; hypoplastic maxilla; maxillary deficiency; retromaxilla and maxillary retrognatism, related to each other with the Boolean terms AND and OR. For this analysis 20 articles were selected: 2 systematic reviews, 3 clinical trials, 14 descriptive observational studies and 1 analytic observational study. Maxillary distraction osteogenesis through rigid external distractor is an effective alternative in the treatment of midface retrusion in non-syndromic cleft lip and palate patients. However, this technique does not completely achieve stable changes, due to multiple factors related to its recurrence.
KEY WORDS: distraction osteogenesis, cleft lip and palate, Le Fort osteotomy, orthognathic surgery.
How to cite this article
GUERRERO, L. M. T.; TRAUB, V. V.; ZURSIEDEL, P. M. I.; ÁLAMOS, S. C.; NOGUERA, P. A.; GUTIÉRREZ, M. C. & SOLÉ, V. P. Facial changes and their stability over time in non-syndromic cleft lip and palate patients undergoing maxillary distraction osteogenesis through rigid external distractor. Narrative review. Int. J. Odontostomat., 13(2):123131, 2019.
