Furlow Palatoplasty for Velopharyngeal Dysfunction Management: Auditing and Predicting Outcomes

The Furlow palatoplasty is a proven procedure in the management of secondary velopharyngeal dysfunction in patients with cleft palate. But the selection of cases, the degree of clinical success, and the preoperative predictors of the same are less established. This study is an effort to retrospectively look at outcomes, in a large series of velopharyngeal dysfunction cases treated with the Furlow palatoplasty alone.

Retrospective analysis of preoperative and postoperative speech and videofluoroscopic data.

Tertiary care center.

Ninety-two patients who were diagnosed with velopharyngeal dysfunction post primary cleft palate repair.

Furlow palatoplasty for velopharyngeal dysfunction post primary cleft palate repair.

Variables analyzed were perceptual speech parameters and, closure ratios obtained from lateral video-fluoroscopic images.

Overall, 81.5% had postoperative improvements in their lateral video-fluoroscopic parameters, 63% improved their nasality scores, and 65.2% had improved speech intelligibility. A simple linear regression was done to predict the postoperative closure ratio. Preoperative closure ratio, hypernasality (moderate and severe), and audible nasal air emission are predictors for postoperative closure ratio.

The Furlow palatoplasty alone led to complete resolution, or significant improvement of velopharyngeal dysfunction in a majority of patients, despite the cohort having a wide range of severity in terms of degree of dysfunction. The predictive formula will be validated in a further study.