A comparative study of maxillary growth following rotation-advancement and triangular flap unilateral cleft lip repairs: an experimental study in rabbits

The present study was designed to investigate 2 features of maxillary growth following Millard rotation-advancement and Tennison triangular flap cleft lip repairs in rabbits with surgically created defects simulating unilateral cleft lip and cleft alveolus. Sixty purebred New Zealand rabbits were used in this experiment. The animals were divided into 4 groups: 2 control groups (unoperated and unrepaired) and 2 experimental groups (lip repair with rotation-advancement and lip repair with triangular flap). Nineteen metric cranial variables were measured directly from the cleaned skulls. Direct cephalometric measurements were taken in the following dimensions: maxillary length, width and height, posterior facial width, and nasal deflection. Significant differences were noted between Millard rotation-advancement group and Tennison triangular flap group in 2 of 6 measurements of maxillary length. Analysis of variance revealed significantly statistical differences between Millard rotation-advancement group and Tennison triangular flap group in 3 of 6 measures of maxillary width. Analysis of variance revealed no significantly statistical differences between Millard rotation-advancement group and Tennison triangular flap group in maxillary height. Statistical differences were noted between Millard rotation-advancement group and Tennison triangular flap group in posterior facial width. There was no significantly statistical difference between Millard rotation-advancement group and Tennison triangular flap group for the nasal deflection measurements. The results of this study indicated that the features of maxillary growth were different between the 2 lip-repair techniques in rabbits with surgically created defects simulating unilateral cleft lip and alveolus.