Cleft palate patients with a severe maxillary hypoplasia can pose a very challenging problem for the surgeon. Traditional orthodontic surgery methods frequently do not fulfil expectations from the point of view of achieving normal aesthetic proportions of the face. Therefore distraction is nowadays an important technique in the treatment of craniofacial skeletal dysplasias. To treat maxillary hypoplasia, either intraoral midface distractor IMD or rigid external distractor RED can be used. This study presents 16 patients. In five of them, we used the IMD and in 11 of them the RED. In all of the patients we achieved good functional as well as aesthetic results. While using this method, complications were minimal. In this study, we analyse surgical and orthodontic methods as well as the advantages and disadvantages of both surgical methods.

        Key words: internal and external maxillary distraction, maxillary hypoplasia, cleft palate