Utilization of pedicled buccal fat pads for coverage of the lateral relaxing wound: A review of literature and a case series of 15 patients.

Background: The buccal fat pad (BFP) is an encapsulated mass originated from a specific fat tissue in various volume throughout the life of each person and BFP has been used in various surgeries as a source of useful graft material due to its easy accessibility and rich vascularization.

Case Report: This report describes fifteen patients who were treated with buccal fat pads (BFP) as a pedicled graft for lateral relaxing wound closure in primary cleft palate surgery. A review of relevant literature is also presented.

Results: All patients had a mean follow-up of 3.7 weeks with a minimum follow-up time of three weeks and a maximum follow-up of four weeks. All patients who had an uneventful immediate postoperative period showed signs of BFP epithelialization characterized by a yellowish tissue beginning in the first week and ending within 3-4 weeks after surgery.

Conclusions: The use of BFP for the small to medium-sized defects reconstruction in palatoplasty is a safe and reliable method with fast healing. Even older patients who would not be able to tolerate time-consuming flap reconstruction procedures had good results. Key words: Cleft palate, buccal fat pads, lateral relaxing wound.