The arterial supply of the palate: implications for closure of cleft palates.

Little is known of the arterial anatomy of the palate. Injection studies and dissection of a total of 49 cadavers have shown the principal arterial supply of the soft palate to be the ascending pharyngeal artery, which anastomoses with the greater palatine artery at the junction of the hard and soft palates. The position and relations of the branches of the ascending palatine artery put it at risk during palate repair.