Alveolar bone grafting: achieving the organisational standards determined by CSAG, a baseline audit at the Birmingham...

Birmingham Children's Hospital (BCH) is the centre for a regional comprehensive cleft service attempting to implement the national guidelines for minimum standards of care. A national audit of cleft management (CSAG) found that 58% of alveolar bone grafts were successful; published series suggest that success rates can be of the order of 95%. We present the results of an audit of alveolar bone grafting over a 33-month period, after implementation.

A retrospective clinical process audit was taken from the hospital notes and an analysis of radiological outcome by Bergland score was obtained by two independent assessors.

The audit highlighted the difficulties of integrating the increased clinical workload. Other difficulties included poorly standardised pre- and postoperative occlusal radiography, inconsistent orthodontic management and a lack of prospective data collection. An 81% success rate for alveolar bone grafting compares favourably to the CSAG study. Of 82 patients, 68 had sufficient data for a retrospective review; 21 were our own patients and 47 were referred into the centralised service. The success of bone grafting as defined by CSAG (including Bergland scores) is based on only two-thirds of the patients as many have their orthodontic treatment managed in more distant units and radiographs are much harder to obtain. Bone grafting later than age 11 years, was true for 28% (6/21) of our BCH patients and 46% (22/47) for those referred to our service.

This audit demonstrates what has been achieved in a re-organised service in the context of Real Politik in the NHS and suggests the areas that require improvement.