Repairing Alveolar Clefts In Cats By Using Distraction Osteogenesis

Secondary autogenous cancellous bone grafting is an established method for alveolar clefts. However, graft failure sometimes occurs due to inappropriate oral mucoperiosteal flaps, patients age, scar or the size of the alveolar cleft. For these patients, we have to find some other treatment.In our study, we surgically built up alveolar cleft models in cats. We closed that artificial cleft by means of DO. We used a distractor which was self-designed. X-ray photos and regular histological observation were taken. We also observed changes of maxillary after distraction. Our conclusions are following:1. The alveolar cleft model of cat is stable which was confirmed by our experiment. It can be used in research about alveolar cleft repair.2. Self-designed distractor was stable during the whole distraction process. We observed soft tissue around it was injured. It suggested that we should make the shape of distractor more curvic and do no harm to soft tissue.3. X-ray photography and histological observation suggested that...