Surgery for Velopharyngeal Dysfunction: A Systematic Review of Interventions and Outcomes

This systematic review sought to evaluate the consensus in the literature regarding the surgical management of VPD and to determine whether a particular procedure results in superior speech outcome or less morbidity Design: A systematic review was carried out according to PRISMA-P guidelines. Systematic review software was used to facilitate 3-stage screening and data extraction by 2 reviewers.

University teaching hospital.

Studies that reported perceptual speech assessment or obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in patients who had undergone surgery for VPD were included in the review.

Four categories of surgery for VPD were examined-pharyngeal flap, sphincter pharyngoplasty, palatoplasty, and posterior pharyngeal wall augmentation.

Perceptual speech assessment, need for further surgery, and occurrence of OSA were the outcomes of interest.

Eighty-three relevant studies were identified, comprising data on 4011 patients. Pharyngeal flap was the most common procedure (64% of patients). Overall, 70.7% of patients attained normal resonance and 65.3% attained normal nasal emission. There was no notable difference in speech outcomes, need for further surgery, or occurrence of OSA across the 4 categories of surgery examined. Heterogeneous groups of patients were reported upon and a variety of perceptual speech assessment scales were used.

There is a lack of consensus in the literature to guide procedure selection for patients with VPD. The development of a standardized minimum data set to record postoperative speech, OSA, and patient-reported outcomes is required.