Minimally invasive surgical and miniscrew-assisted rapid palatal expansion (MISMARPE) in adult patients

The purpose of this study was to evaluate maxillary expansion, operative time and pain associated with a new minimally invasive surgical technique to treat maxillary hypoplasia in adult patients. Consecutive patients were included and prospectively analyzed. The technique consists in miniscrew-assisted rapid palatal expansion (MARPE), minimally invasive approach to maxillary osteotomies, latency period and activation period until the desired expansion. The parameters evaluated included operative time, treatment-related pain by the visual analog scale (VAS), and transverse maxillary expansion. The Shapiro-Wilk test was used to assess the normality of data distribution. A paired t-test was used to compare the data between T0 (preoperative) and T1 (postoperative - end of activation). The significance level was set at 5%. Eleven patients were included. Mean operative time was 24.11 min (14.4-32 min) and overall postoperative VAS score was 2.81 (0-9). A comparative analysis showed significant increases in maxillary width at the skeletal, alveolar, and dental levels (p < 0.0001 for all), with a mean range of 1.8 (SD 0.3) mm to 4.7 (SD 0.5) mm. The present minimally invasive surgical MARPE (MISMARPE) technique appears to yield good skeletal outcomes with minimal trauma. It might have potential for clinical use, but larger comparative studies are needed to confirm the clinical relevance of the approach.