Long-term impact of saliva control surgery in children with disability

Sialorrhea is a common problem in children with disability, often negatively affecting socialization, self-esteem, and burden of care. Saliva control surgery is an available option to manage this problem, particularly when other conservative methods have failed. As little is known about the long-term impact of surgery, we followed up 62 patients who had combined bilateral submandibular duct translocation and bilateral sublingual gland excision at our pediatric hospital between 1994 and 2014. Eligible individuals were identified through a search of ICD procedure codes. When families of patients were contacted successfully, they were invited to complete a 14-item questionnaire designed specifically for this study. The results indicated that long-term outcomes of surgery were very good; 13/62 (21%) individuals no longer had a drooling problem and another 30 (48%) experienced only mild to moderate drooling. Although 84% families reported some or major improvement in drooling, 9 families reported that they would not go through the experience again because of a difficult recovery period, lack of effectiveness of the intervention, changes in saliva consistency that caused coughing and gagging, and dental decay. None of the collected variables were predictive of good or poor outcome. The study indicated that surgical intervention is effective in the long term in the majority of cases and can be recommended to other families who attend our saliva control clinic.