Abstract
Patients with unrepaired cleft palate defects still exist within remote rural areas. The prosthodontic rehabilitation of an adult edentulous cleft patient could be very demanding for treating maxillofacial prosthodontist, since most of them are edentulous, challenging the retention and the stability of the maxillary prosthesis. It is therefore highly important that cleft palate patients seek dental and prosthodontic care as early in their life as possible. In this report, an unusual case of a patient self-obturated cleft palate defect is presented. The patient’s self-made prosthesis was replaced by an appropriately fabricated pharyngeal obturator prosthesis in order to improve speech and swallowing.
Highlights
Cleft palate is among the most common birth defects today, and refers to an elongated opening in the hard and/or soft palate [1]
The advent of plastic surgery offered more predictable outcomes in the cleft palate reconstruction, surgical repair alone often cannot rehabilitate the palatal defect, and appropriate palatal appliances such as palatal obturators and/or a speech aid prostheses, are necessary in order to restore the congenital defect [1]. These appliances have been historically used since Demosthenes (384-323 B.C), the great Greek orator accomplished the first obturation in order to improve his speech by using moderately sized pebbles to fill his palatal defect [2]
Since adult patients that require prosthetic rehabilitation for their unrepaired cleft palate present a unique challenge for the maxillofacial prosthodontist who treats the patient
Summary
Cleft palate is among the most common birth defects today, and refers to an elongated opening in the hard and/or soft palate [1]. The advent of plastic surgery offered more predictable outcomes in the cleft palate reconstruction, surgical repair alone often cannot rehabilitate the palatal defect, and appropriate palatal appliances such as palatal obturators and/or a speech aid prostheses, are necessary in order to restore the congenital defect [1]. Cleft palate rehabilitation protocols recommend concomitant reconstructive surgery and multidisciplinary management by team approach that ideally begins during infancy [4] Their numbers are limited, in developing countries and remote rural areas of developed regions where residents have limited access to primary and specialist dental services [5], adult patients with surgically unrepaired and prosthetically unrestored palatal clefts are still present. The prosthodontic steps for an appropriate prosthetic rehabilitation will be described
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