Does Distraction Lower Risk of VPI Compared to Conventional Maxillary Advancement? A Retrospective Cohort Study of Adolescents with Cleft Palate.

Objective: To determine whether method of maxillary advancement in adolescents with cleft palate with or without cleft lip (CP ± L) influences post-operative velopharyngeal function.

Methods: Retrospective cohort. Methods: Pediatric Tertiary Care Hospital. Methods: One hundred and ninety-nine patients with CP ± L after LeFort I osteotomy for maxillary advancement at our institution between January 2007 and June 2019. Methods: LeFort I osteotomy via distraction osteogenesis (DO) or conventional osteotomy (CO). Methods: Patients who underwent DO or CO were compared for the presence of new velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI), as measured by perceptual rating by a craniofacial speech-language pathologist. : Of the 199 patients who underwent maxillary advancement, 126 were available for analysis. The DO group was younger, male, and had more severe maxillary hypoplasia. Following surgery, 17/41 (41.5%) of the DO group had new VPI, compared to just 23/85 (27.1%) of the CO group. After adjusting for cleft type and predicted maxillary advancement, however, there was not sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis of no difference in risk of post-operative VPI between the two surgical groups (prevalence ratio [PR] 1.40, 95% CI 0.68-2.90). Increased prevalence of VPI after DO versus CO was primarily observed among patients with a pre-operative velopharyngeal need ratio < 0.8 (PR = 2.01, 95% CI 0.79-5.10) and patients with normal velopharyngeal function pre-operatively (PR = 2.86, 95% CI 0.96-8.50). : Our results suggest an increased rather than decreased risk of VPI following DO relative to CO. This association is primarily seen among those with a smaller velopharyngeal ratio or perceptually normal velopharyngeal function pre-operatively.