Tongue musculomucosal flap for soft palate reconstruction in patients with OSAHS - clinical experience in technical strategy.

BACKGROUND With the idea of "replacing lost tissure with similar tissure in kind", vessel-pedicled palate mucosal flap, pedicled buccal musculomucosal flap and adjacent tongue musculomucosal flap could be the ideal approaches to soft palate reconstruction. AIM To assess the adjacent tongue musculomucosal flap for soft palate reconstruction. PATIENTS AND METHODS From August 2010 to July 2011, we applied tongue musculomucosal flap for soft palate reconstruction in three patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea/Hypopnoes Syndrome (OSAHS) in order to release OSAHS symptom by glossal volume reduction. RESULTS All patients recovered from intraoral operations with good objective as subjective speech and swallowing. Suffice it to say that OSAHS symptom was released for these patients. CONCLUSIONS Here we provide a case to deal with problems related to OSAHS symptom when one works on oral surgery or reconstructing oral structure.