Cleft palate repair treament through surgery increase the risks of sleep-disordered breathing and obstructive sleep apnea

One of cleft palate repair treatment is through surgery. It is common surgery procedure among people who born with birth defects, especially to non-syndromic cleft palate.

However, current study suggested to the surgeon to observe their cleft palate patients post surgery, because sleep-disordered breathing and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may waiting them or higher than before treatment.

While these risks also associated with anatomical differences, however, the effects of surgery in reducing airway size was significantly than anatomical factors affects to the risk of OSA and sleep-disordered breathing.

According to the findings, of total 459 patients with non-syndromic cleft palate and 48 patients with Pierre Robin syndrome involved in this study;
- 4.7% had symptoms of sleep-disordered breathing before surgical repair,
- 68.6% had symptoms afterward, and
- 16.9% had symptoms both before and after cleft palate surgery.

Overall, reported in the Archive Otolaryngol Head Neck Surgery on March 2011, the study authors, Dr. Todd D. Otteson and Dr. Jacob G. Robinson of the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh suggested to surgeons to include these risks as part of office visit from their patients before taking surgery.
In other words, there is a risk of OSA and sleep-disordered breathing due to improves their speech, despite those risk may also repaired during surgery or through continous positive airways pressure.