Background: Traditional distraction osteogenesis (DO) with the tooth-borne rigid external device (RED) system was regularly used in treating patients with cleft-related maxillary hypoplasia. However, the bone-borne RED system with miniplates and bone screws has currently become an effective treatment. This retrospective study was to compare bone-borne RED with traditional tooth-borne RED in distraction effectiveness, blood loss, operative time, and long-term stability.
Methods: Twenty-two growing patients who underwent RED therapy were divided into two groups: eleven patients utilizing the bone-borne RED system with the transcutaneous wire attached with skeletal anchorage; another eleven patients using the traditional tooth-borne RED system with the intra-oral device attached with dental anchorage. Serial lateral cephalograms were analyzed for comparing treatment outcomes and stability in 1 month, 6 months, and 1.5 years after distraction.
Results: In bone-borne RED group, the maxilla was advanced by 19.98 mm with slight clockwise rotation of 0.40° and minimal palatal inclination change of incisor by -3.94°. In traditional tooth-borne RED group, the maxilla showed less advancement by 14.52 mm, with significant counter-clockwise rotation of -11.23° and excessive palatal inclination change of incisor by -10.86°. Although operative time was longer in the bone-borne RED group by 38.4 min, this did not bring about greater blood loss.
Conclusions: the bone-borne RED via transcutaneous wire system provides an easy, simple, and comfortable procedure as well as favorable long-term stability in maxillary distraction.
Keywords: cleft lip and palate; distraction osteogenesis; long-term stability; rigid external device; soft tissue profile; transcutaneous maxillary distraction.