Paeng, Jun-Young;Lee, Il-Gu;Myoung, Hoon;Hwang, Soon-Jung;Seo, Byoung-Moo;Choe, Jin-Yeong;Lee, Jong-Ho;Choung, Pill-Hoon;Kim, Myung-Jin
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Purpose: Maxillary hypoplasia is a common developmental problem of cleft lip and palate. Fair results with distraction osteogenesis have been reported especially when these patients need a large amount of maxillary advancement, instead of orthognathic surgery. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the clinical results with a relatively new distractor, $TS-MD^{(R)}$ (Trans-sinusoidal maxillary distractor, KLS Martin, Tuttlingen, Germany) which was used for the advancement of the maxilla in the cleft patients. Patients and Method: Distraction osteogenesis using $TS-MD^{(R)}$ was performed for four CLP patients (three males and one female) who had maxillary hypoplasia. All patients were over 16 years old. As three patients showed mandibular prognathism as well, bilateral sagittal split ramus osteotomy for mandibular setback was performed at the same time. After consolidation periods of 4 to 12 weeks, the distraction devices were removed and miniplates were placed for simultaneous internal fixation. Results: Three patients showed a large amount of incisal overbite but one patient did not have sufficient maxillary advancement. Le Fort I osteotomy, maxillary advancement and internal fixation should have been performed for the patient when removing the distraction devices. Different from the $clinician{\box}s$ expectation, the amount of maxillary advancement using $TS-MD^{(R)}$ was not sufficient, although the device has rigid mechanical property. Rotation of maxilla during distraction forward and downward was also observed. Conclusion: Even though the maxillary advancement with $TS-MD^{(R)}$ device could be achieved, the clinical control of some characteristics related with the device was necessary. More clinical studies on $TS-MD^{(R)}$ should be performed.