SPEECH RESULTS OF FURLOWʹS SOFT PALATE REPAIR

Objective: To evaluate the speech results of Furlows repair in soft palate repair.Material and Methods: Cleft lip and palate is a common and complex disorder. It is relatively more common in Asians. The functional goals of cleft surgery are to improve speech and hearing and avoid retardation of maxillary growth. These goals are achieved by early cleft palate repair. The patientsʹ age at the time of surgery in our series was 6- 18 months. The timing of cleft surgery is very important optimum speech and hearing. We perform Millardʹs repair for unilateral cleft lip at 3-6 months of age and lip adhesion for bilateral cleft lips. Clefts of the soft palate are repaired by Furlowʹs double opposing Z-plasty technique at the age of 6-9 months. Hard palate clefts are repaired at the age of 12-18 months by Von Langenbeckʹs technique.Results: Out of 80 patients 57(71.25%) had unilateral cleft lip and palate where as 23(28.75%) patients had bilateral cleft lip and palate. Although Furlowʹs repair of the soft palate is considered a difficult technique but we have found that it yields excellent results in terms of speech and hearing, without interfering much with maxillofacial growth. We achieved normal speech results in 78.75% (n=63) cases and normal articulation in 93.75% (n=75), after treatment with Furlowʹs double opposing Z-plasty of the cleft soft palate. The fistula rate in our series is 2.26%.Conclusion: Furlowʹs repair is technically difficult procedure, but it yields excellent speech results.