Wound Healing Following Palatoplasty Using Either Honey or Warm Saline Mouth Bath for Postoperative Wound Care: A Randomized-Controlled Study.

Objective: To evaluate and compare the effect of honey or saline mouth bath for wound care on the rate of re-epithelisation of the lateral palatal defects and occurrence of early postoperative complications following palatoplasty.

Methodology: This was a prospective randomized study on participants with non-syndromic cleft palate conducted at a tertiary health institution in Lagos, Nigeria. The test group received oral honey drops for post-operative care for an initial period of two weeks post-surgery, while the control group had regular oral toileting using a warm saline solution. The primary outcome was epithelisation of lateral palatal defect at 2- and 4-weeks post repair. Descriptive and comparative statistics were computed, and the -value was set at <0.05.

Results: Fifty participants were recruited into the study, 24 in the Test group and 26 in the Control group. The frequency of occurrence of oronasal fistula in the Test group was 4.0% while in the Control group was 10.0%, however, this was not statistically significant. Complete epithelisation of the lateral palatal defect was clinically observed in 66.7% of the participants in the Test group at 2 weeks post-operation, while only 38.5% of participants in the Control group had clinically observed complete epithelisation at the same time point (β = 1.70,  = .035, 95% CI 1.122-26.533). At four weeks, all wounds had epithelised irrespective of the study group.

Conclusion: The application of honey appears to aid earlier epithelization of palatal surgical wounds following cleft palate repair and reduced the incidence of palatal fistula.