Intraoral prosthetic appliance for the prevention of palatal grooving in premature intubated infants.

Abstract

Palatal groove is one of the complications of orotracheal intubation in premature infants. Previous reports demonstrated an incidence of 48% of palatal groove formation in premature infants which increased to 88% when the duration of intubation was greater than two weeks. A prosthetic intraoral acrylic appliance which has successfully prevented such a groove formation has been described in this paper.