Obturator with soft liner in the management of hard palate defect: A case report

Abstract

Maxillary defects are created following surgical treatment of patients with congenital defects, trauma, or neoplasm. Oral cancer is one of the more common malignanciesif detected lately massive tissues will be excised surgically and correction will be challenging. One of the treatment strategies is obturator, the retention of which is a major problem. 70 years old female presented with complaint of difficulty in chewing, speech and unlike her appearance. Hemimaxillectomy (or transectomy) was done 6 months ago as surgical treatment of squamous cell carcinoma resulted in a huge hole on the right side of the remaining maxilla.The size of the defect was about 3.0X1.5 cm. Acrylic obturator was made. Soft liner (Mucopren, Germany) was added to the fitting surface of the obturator. The patient’s speech, swallowing, mastication and facial appearance were improved. The use of hard acrylic base obturator with soft linear rendered the obturator more retentive and comfortable to the patient. To the best of our knowledge this is the first case to be reported in Sudan in a method different from those used by others worldwide.

Keywords: Obturator, soft linear, maxillary defect, Sudan.