Experimental Manipulation of Midfacial Growth: A Synthesis of Five Years of Research at the Iowa Maxillofacial Growth Laboratory

The purpose of this report is to summarize results and generalizations of animal experimentation conducted at the Iowa Maxillofacial Growth Laboratory, and to comment on the directions of future activity. Since 1965, the laboratory has functioned as part of a hospital-based interdisciplinary research project aimed at improvement of cleft palate habilitative techniques. The laboratory maintains organizational affiliation with the department of otolaryngology and maxillofacial surgery in the College of Medicine, and the department of orthodontics in the College of Dentistry. Research emphasis has been on studies with high potential for providing information for relatively rapid clinical application. The long-range goal is elucidation of control mechanisms that influence growth in the maxillofacial complex. A more immediate goal is identification and control of surgical variables used in cleft palate repairs that might interfere with postsurgical growth in the face. Ultimately, we hope to develop ways to avoid or compensate for growthinhibiting surgical variables. Achievement of that goal would mean that palate repair surgery could be done in humans as soon after birth as was medically feasible, and that delay of palate surgery until the second or third postnatal year would no longer be necessary. Other goals led to involvement in studies of dental development in dogs, and studies of the role of the nasal septal apparatus in dogs and rats. Most of the work on palate surgery has been done using beagle dogs, but recent findings suggest that rats can be