Increased Risk of Velopharyngeal Insufficiency in Patients Undergoing Staged Palate Repair

To evaluate the association of 2-stage cleft palate (CP) surgery on velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) incidence, speech surgeries, and cleft-related surgical burden.

Retrospective cohort with follow-up of 4 to 19 years.

Academic, tertiary children's hospital.

Patients who underwent CP surgery between 2000 and 2017. Exclusions included submucous CP or age at last contact under 3.9.

Cleft palate surgery, completed in either a single-stage or 2-stage repair.

Rates of VPI diagnosis and speech surgery and total cleft surgeries; t tests, tests of proportion, and linear and logistic regression were performed. Total cleft-related surgeries were examined in a subset (n = 418) of patients with chart reviews.

A total of 1047 patients were included; 59.6% had 2-stage CP repair, 40.4% had single-stage repair. Approximately 32% of children with 2-stage CP repair were diagnosed with VPI, as opposed to 22% of single-stage patients (P < .001). Children with 2-stage CP repair were 1.8 times as likely to be diagnosed with VPI (P < .001). Speech surgery rates were similar across groups. Patients who had 2-stage repair received an average of 2.3 more cleft-related procedures, when excluding prosthesis management procedures.

Our data show an increased risk of VPI diagnosis and increased surgical burden among patients receiving 2-stage CP repair.