A New Device for Interdental Distraction Osteogenesis for Management of Wide Alveolar Clefts

Along the journey of treatment of cleft patients, secondary autogenous alveolar bone grafting is the technique basically used for cleft alveolus and palate repair during mixed dentition stage, in order to create bone support for teeth adjacent to the cleft, making a bone matrix through which teeth in the line of the cleft can erupt, re-stabilize alveolar process contour and maxillary segments. In cases with wide alveolar clefts, more than the width of a maxillary canine, failure of this procedure is usually encountered. So, a further step prior to grafting procedure can be done in an attempt to reduce cleft width to enhance success of future grafting.

Distraction osteogenesis (DO) which is a procedure of growing new bone by mechanical stretching of the ordinary pre-existing vascularized bone tissue by a distraction device, where both segments of new alveolar bone as well as attached gingiva are formed can be used here to aid in minimizing cleft width.

The aim of this study was to introduce a new custom-made tooth-borne distractor that could provide 3D control upon using interdental distraction osteogenesis (IDO) with a posterior segment transport anteriorly along curvature of the arch through creating a controlled fracture, then applying this distractor device carrying a bone transport segment forward, decreasing the cleft width anteriorly with another benefit of leaving behind regenerated bone and attached gingiva posteriorly.