Changes in Quality of Life After Secondary Closure of Palatal Defects: Prosthetic Obturation Versus Surgical Reconstruction.

BACKGROUND The closure of palatal defects after tumor resection or irradiation is performed with either a prosthesis or autogenous tissue; however, there are no clear criteria regarding selection of the method. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the real-world situation and problems of palatal closure using prostheses, and examined patient opinion on how palatal closure using autogenous tissue improved their postoperative quality of life (QOL). METHODS In 5 patients whose palatal defects resulted from treatment for head and neck cancer and were closed with a prosthesis, the palate was closed secondarily with autogenous tissue; a questionnaire on daily life was administered pre- and post-operatively. RESULTS Functional improvements in terms of speech and eating were achieved in all and in 4 of 5 cases, respectively. In all cases, the QOL was better for palatal closure with autogenous tissue than with the prosthesis. CONCLUSIONS As postoperative QOL was considered to be better when reconstructing the palate with autogenous tissue than with the prosthesis, we recommend to actively select autogenous tissue for palate reconstruction.