Plaques palatines chez le nourrisson porteur de fente labiomaxillaire

Cleft lip and palate represent a common congenital dysmorphosis that requires multidisciplinary treatment care, from birth to the end of adolescence. The therapeutic calendars, as well as the surgical techniques used, vary from an operational centre to another, just like the resort to presurgical orthopaedic treatment. Today, palatal plates are recommended by some authors and disparaged by others. Several kinds of plates exist: fixed or removable, active or passive, combined or not to an extraoral strapping. After reminding the principal cleft lip and palate classifications, we describe the different kinds of palatal plates and their realisation techniques. Preoperative orthopaedic treatment is of course much debated, but short-, mean- and long-term expected beneficial effects are not the same for all teams. It remains difficult to make allowance between the combined action of surgery, orthopaedic treatment, the extent of dysfunctions, the initial polymorphism of cleft, the growth potentialities different from an individual to another. Considering the variability of the therapeutic protocols from an operational centre to another, it is very difficult today to assess the importance of these presurgical orthopaedic treatments.