The development of velopharyngeal incompetence in patients who have previously received surgery of maxillary advancement has been reported. Here, we report a case of unilateral cleft lip and palate with mild preoperative velopharyngeal incompetence.
The case was a 20-year-old male patient, referred to our clinic with a chief complaint of maxillary retrusion. We confirmed the diagnosis of maxillary retrusion and mandibular prognathism. The patient underwent bilateral sagittal splitting ramus osteotomy and maxillary advancement by distraction osteogenesis with a rigid external distraction device. The velopharyngeal function was evaluated using perceptual speech assessment, nasoendoscopy, and cephalometric analysis. Although the maxillary advancement was larger than 10 millimeters in this case, the patient's velopharyngeal function remained without deterioration after the maxillary distraction.
