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CC BY-NC 4.0 · Arch Plast Surg 2016; 43(03): 254-257
DOI: 10.5999/aps.2016.43.3.254
Original Article

Postoperative Speech Outcomes and Complications in Submucous Cleft Palate Patients

Tae Seo Park
Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Busan, Korea
,
Yong Chan Bae
Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Busan, Korea
Biomedical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea
,
Su Bong Nam
Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Busan, Korea
,
Kyung Dong Kang
Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Busan, Korea
,
Ji Yoon Sung
Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Busan, Korea
› Author AffiliationsThis work was supported by a clinical research grant from Pusan National University Hospital in 2016.
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Background The postoperative speech outcomes of submucous cleft palate (SMCP) surgery are known to be poorer than those of other types of cleft palate. We attempted to objectively characterize the postoperative complications and speech outcomes of the surgical treatment of SMCP through a comparison with the outcomes of incomplete cleft palate (ICP).

Methods This study included 53 SMCP patients and 285 ICP patients who underwent surgical repair from 1998 to 2015. The average age of the patients at the time of surgery was 3.9±1.9 years for the SMCP patients and 1.3±0.9 years for the ICP patients. A retrospective analysis was performed of the complications, the frequency of subsequent surgical correction for velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD), and speech outcomes.

Results In both the SMCP and ICP patients, no cases of respiratory difficulty, bleeding, or wound disruption were noted. Delayed wound healing and fistula occurred in 18.9% and 5.7% of the SMCP patients and in 14% and 3.2% of the ICP patients, respectively. However, no statistically significant difference in either delayed wound healing or fistula occurrence was observed between the two groups. The rate of surgical correction for VPD in the SMCP group was higher than in the ICP group. In the subset of 26 SMCP patients and 62 ICP patients who underwent speech evaluation, the median speech score value was 58.8 in the SMCP group and 66 in the ICP group, which was a statistically significant difference.

Conclusions SMCP and ICP were found to have similar complication rates, but SMCP had significantly worse speech outcomes.

Keywords

Cleft palate - Speech - Velopharyngeal insufficiency

This article was presented at the 73rd Congress of the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons on November 13-15, 2015 in Seoul, Korea.




Publication History

Received: 09 November 2015

Accepted: 18 February 2016

Article published online:
20 April 2022

© 2016. The Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, permitting unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

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