Effect of cleft palate type and manufacturing method on feeding plate adaptation: A volumetric micro-computed tomography analysis.

Purpose: Feeding plates for cleft palate patients have been used by clinicians for many years to temporarily close the oro-nasal communication until definitive treatment with surgical techniques. The current in vitro study aimed to evaluate the adaptation of the feeding plates manufactured by two different techniques for three cleft types.

Materials and methods: Feeding plates were manufactured with conventional compression molding (CM) and 3-dimensional (3D) additive manufacturing on main models representing bilateral cleft, unilateral right, and unilateral left cleft types (n = 10). The 3D volumetric space between the feeding plate and the corresponding main model was measured by micro-CT to evaluate the adaptation. The adaptation of the plates was assessed based on three different measurement regions: anterior, left, and right. Repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA), three factorial ANOVA, and post hoc Bonferroni tests were used as statistical analysis (α = 0.05).

Results: CM groups showed higher volumetric space measurements between the base and master model than 3D groups regardless of measurement region and cleft type, which refers to misfit (p ˂ 0.05). Cleft type differed in the adaptation of 3D groups yet not in CM groups (p ˂ 0.05). The volumetric space evaluation for the right measurement region resulted in higher values regardless of manufacturing method and cleft type (p ˂ 0.05).

Conclusion: Considering that 3D-printed feeding plates showed better adaptation compared to conventionally manufactured plates for all cleft types, 3D printing can be suggested as the manufacturing method of choice for feeding plates.