Systematic review and meta-analysis of speech outcome among different surgical techniques post cleft palate repair: Furlow against other  palatoplasty techniques

A cleft palate is a congenital condition in which the palate has an opening that can be on either one or both sides of the roof of the mouth and vary in size. Different surgical techniques are used to correct cleft palate. The choice of surgical approach for cleft palate repair relies on the nature and size of the aperture as well as the surgeon’s experience and preferences. The current systematic review and meta-analysis’s main goal was to evaluate and compare the efficacy of various cleft palate surgical procedures.

The databases of PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar were searched for English papers having online complete texts. Preclinical studies, abstracts, theses, editorials, commentaries, meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and evidence synthesis were all disregarded. A prevalence meta-analysis and subgroup analysis were carried out with the use of Stata and the Meta XL statistical software.

Medline, Google Scholar, and PubMed were among the databases searched. A first search revealed 3059 studies. Only 2562 studies remained after duplicates were eliminated. The abstracts and titles of the articles were skimmed. 266 papers were examined after being cut based on predetermined eligibility criteria. Finally, 36 articles were found to have successfully met the eligibility requirements.

Furlow palatoplasty was superior to other procedures in terms of incidence of velopharyngeal insufficiency. The effectiveness of techniques for speech based on fistula formation was Bardach, Furlow, Wardill-Kilner then von Langenbeck. The one stage palatoplasty was superior to the two-stage approach in terms of fistula formation and velopharyngeal insufficiency.

Level of evidence: Not ratable