Early bone grafting in complete cleft lip and palate cases following maxillofacial orthopedics. I. The method and the skeletal development from seven to thirteen years of age.

The methods of preoperative orthopedics: a "T-traction" procedure for unilateral clefts and a combined premaxillary pressure and expansion procedure for bilateral clefts and of early alveolar bone grafting: the Nordin's "four-flap" technique, are described in detail. The subsequent effects of treatment according to those methods were studied with roentgencephalometric analysis in cleft patients from 7 to 13 years of age. They were divided into two unilateral and one bilateral complete cleft group, all having been early bone grafted. The unilateral groups were composed of one group of 39 children operated on during the period 1960-65 without preoperative "T-traction", and another group, of 46 children, operated on in 1965-72 after preoperative "T-traction". The bilateral group included 19 children operated on 1960-72 after preoperative orthopedics. The same degree of inhibited development of the facial skeleton as found in another Swedish early bone grafted cleft group was not present in our patients. The development of the skeletal profile in our bone grafted cases, especially those in the "T-traction" group, was well within the limits of non-grafted U.S. cases, but differed from non-clefts.