Effects of Secondary Alveolar Bone Grafting on Maxillary Growth in Cleft Lip or Palate Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

To assess the effect of secondary alveolar bone grafting (SABG) on maxillary growth in patients with unilateral cleft lip or palate (UCL/P).
Systematic review and Meta-analysis.
Pubmed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science and manual search was performed to assess the maxillary growth following SABG in UCL/P patients.
Non-syndromic patients with UCL/P.
Comparison of maxillary growth between patients with UCL/P who underwent SABG and UCL/P patients who had not undergone SABG or non-cleft control.
39 of the identified 233 articles were assessed for inclusion and exclusion criteria after duplicate removal and title and abstract reading. 7 articles (1 prospective, and 6 retrospective studies) were included in the qualitative analysis and 2 articles were subjected to quantitative analysis. Four studies had a low risk of bias and three studies had a moderate risk of bias. Meta-analysis revealed a significant reduction of SNA and no significant difference in ANB in the SABG group compared to the non-cleft control group(I ² = 0%). There was no significant difference in ANB between SABG and non-cleft control; however, results showed high heterogeneity(I ² = 83%). Meta-analysis of SNA and ANB showed no significant difference between SABG and the cleft control group; however, there was high heterogeneity.
The studies showed a low to moderate risk of bias. SABG causes inhibition of maxillary growth in patients with cleft lip or palate when compared to patients with non-cleft control. Due to high heterogeneity, comparison to cleft control showed insufficient evidence.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.