Commissuroplasty for macrostomia: surgical technique and long-term aesthetic and functional results assessment

Macrostomia or lateral cleft lip is a rare congenital deformity. In this article we describe a surgical technique of macrostomia repair developed. The objective of this article is to assess the results of our surgical technique and to validate a method for macrostomia surgical result evaluation.

We included retrospectively patients with unilateral and bilateral macrostomia, operated from 1995 to 2014 in our department. First part of the study was a satisfaction questionnaire completed by patients. The second part was subjective evaluation of frontal photography (closed mouth, wide open and smiling) by surgeons and lay people with a questionnaire. Both group completed a second questionnaire within one to six months.

Eighteen patients answered the questionnaire. The satisfaction for all patients were considered as very good for 38.9% (n = 7) of patients and good for 44.4% (n = 8). 21 patients were photographed, 5 isolated macrostomia, 13 macrostomia with minor facial asymmetry and 3 with a major asymmetry. Surgeons evaluated the result as very good for isolated macrostomia and good for syndromic macrostomia. Layperson evaluated the result as good in isolated macrostomia and macrostomia with minor facial asymmetry and average with major facial asymmetry. P < 0.0001. The evolution of the results between medical and non-medical assessors in our two questionnaires, were non-significant.

In this study, we propose a new methodology to assess commissuroplasty surgical results, with a 3 type of evaluator: patients, surgeons and laypeople. We present a simple surgical technique, that allows good results in syndromic and isolated macrostomia.