Cultured oral epithelium as an effective biological dressing using for palatal wounds after palatoplasty

Cultured allografts derived from mucosal tissue provide a potent stimulus t o wound healing in a wide variety of wounds. In the field of oral surgery, mucoperiosteal defect of the hard palate after palatoplasty causes scar con traction, leading to poor growth of the maxilla. The promotion of wound hea ling in these cases through cultured epithelial allografting has been repor ted. Cultured epithelial allografting was done using a stranger's cultured cells. We grafted cultured oral epithelium in the hope of improving growth of maxilla. Clefts of the soft and hard palate (seven patients), and a cleft of the sof t palate (two patients) were present. Average patient age was 1 year 4 mont hs. Palatoplasty was done by a conventional pushback operation. Oral epithe lial cells in healthy adults were cultured using 3T3 cells as the feeder la yer. After 3 weeks, cultured oral mucosal epithelium was grafted on a raw s urface following palatoplasty. In all patients, the grafted areas underwent re-epithelialization after abo ut 1 week and did not exhibit any side effects of graft rejection. Grafted areas healed completely after 2-3 weeks in all cases. Cultured epithelial allografts serve as a temporary biological dressing, an d accelerates epithelialization and wound healing. Allografting by cultured oral epithelium has proved to be a very useful therapeutic modality in pal atoplasty, as well as effective augmentation materials in cases of oral muc osal defects. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.