Buccal fat pad and collagen in management of oral submucous fibrosis

Oral submucous fibrosis is a chronic progressive premalignant condition, characterized by gradually increasing fibrosis of sub mucosa of cheek resulting in trismus thereby limiting mouth opening. Various surgical modalities have been tried in surgical management, but each has its own limitations. Buccal fat pad and collagen membrane has seen satisfactory results. In the present study these two grafting materials have been compared and assessed their roles in improving the mouth opening post operatively. The study group consisted of 15x2=30 patients with bilateral clinically and histopathologically proven cases of oral submucous fibrosis. Group I (buccal fat pad graft) was compared with group II (collagen graft) post operatively for mouth opening up to 6 month follow up. Collagen membrane group showed better mouth opening post operatively owing to their faster epithelization rate and less wound contracture. But the difference was not statistically significant. Findings of this study concludes that the use of collagen membrane following excision of fibrotic bands in the management of oral submucous fibrosis gave better results with respect to post operative mouth opening.