Answer:
This article from 1993, “Intraoperative Rapid Expansion in Cleft Palate Repair,” describes the use of Foley balloons, inflated to 5 cc over about 30 minutes in gradual increments, to expand the tissues lateral to the cleft. The paper claims that the palate can be lengthened by distension and recruitment of surrounding tissues, i.e. the creep effect, allowing for closure with less tension and avoiding the use of relaxing incisions. There have been no other papers on the use of tissue expanders in patients, but there have been a number of papers in animals, to wit: “The effects of soft-tissue expansion on lip repair and mid facial growth in a rabbit cleft lip model,” by H. Edington, et al in which cleft animals undergoing tissue expansion exhibited significantly reduced postoperative lip pressure and increased midfacial growth compared with cleft animals without expansion