Intraoperative and early postoperative complications using the buccal fat pad during cleft palate surgery in East Indonesia

Abstract

Six baby’s with cleft are born in Indonesia every hour. There is no standardized treatment of cleft in East Indonesia. Closure is an important aspect during cleft lip and palate surgery. Various techniques have been advocated to gain tissue for closure of cleft area. Mostly these techniques may only provide a small amount of additional length. For lager defects they may be use the local flaps or the buccal fat pad flap. The aim of this study is gain more information about intraoperative and early postoperative complications using the buccal fat pat during cleft palate surgery in East Indonesia. The mouth can be divided in six parts therefor the LAHSAL index will be used. This LAHSAL system is a diagrammatic classification of cleft lip and palate. The LAHSAL system is being used for this study as this system classifies the cleft primarily on location and also on the cleft being complete or incomplete, which can be significant for the research. After diagnosis and classification, the following patient data was obtained: patient age, weight, gender, type of surgery (primary or following, i.e. when the surgery is a correction of a previous treatment), if a bone graft is needed for closure, history of maxillofacial surgery or orthodontics, operation technique, operation duration, type of an aesthesia (local or general), radiographical records and light photos. These data were collected during the pre-operative consultation, about 24 hours before surgery. It was the policy of the team to admit and see all patients one day prior to surgery for counselling, postoperative instructions and evaluating the patient's facial defect.