Perforation of the Hard Palate Associated with Cocaine Abuse

Cocaine and oral health

“…19,20,26,30,41 In three other patients, the final outcome of the surgical recon struction was unknown because they were lost to follow up within three weeks. 12,32,40 In another patient, two 1.5 mm fistulas remained after an anterior based tongue fl ap procedure. 15 A suc cessful one-year follow up has only been reported for one patient with two bipedi cle mucoperiostous fl aps.…”

“…12,15,26,35,37,40 Surgical reconstruction of the pal ate failed in five out of ten reported patients. 19,20,26,30,41 In three other patients, the final outcome of the surgical recon struction was unknown because they were lost to follow up within three weeks.…”

“…14, 15 The perforation of the nasal septum reduces the nasal support and results in a broad, fl at nose, the so-called saddle nose deformity 12,[14][15][16][17][18] ( Fig. 2).…”

“…Their speech becomes hypernasal and articulation may be so poor that they can not communicate effectively. 12,18,28,33,38,39 In addition, eating and drinking is dif ficult due to oronasal refl ux of both solids and liquids. 18,20,38 Some patients had resorted to obturating the defect by inserting chewing gum, 17 a piece of white bread 19 or a plug of tissue paper into the palatal defect.…”

Cocaine-related syndrome and palatal reconstruction: report of a series of cases

“…Many reconstructive procedures to repair palatal defects have been described, ranging from local or regional flaps, such as tongue, pharyngeal, buccal mucosa and temporalis flaps, to free tissue transfer [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] . In cocaine abusers both local and regional tissue transfers have limited use.…”