Nasal Symmetry Achieved By Nasoalveolar Molding In Cleft Lip And Palate Patients- A Literature Review

OBJECTIVE: To review the significance of Nasoalveolar Molding in achieving Nasal Symmetry in Cleft lip and Palate patients before Lip repair. METHODOLOGY: A Data search was performed based on available electronic data base, hand search articles and books since 1994-2010. This included Cochrane data base, medline, pubmed, research journals, and papers. The total of nearly 900 articles were found related to naso alveolar molding among which filtered results showed with 302 randomized control trials. Inclusion criteria included both unilateral and bilateral cleft lip and palate cases who had presurgical nasoalveolar molding with nasal stents ; prior to primary lip repair ,whilst the exclusion criteria was syndromic patients, ,interrupted treatment timings, more than six months of age, immunocompromised, autoimmune diseases ,previous history of lip or nasal surgery before nasoalveolar molding for any reasons. Overall 28 studies met the basic inclusion criteria. RESULTS: Nasal symmetry is preferably well acheived by Nasoalveolar Molding.