The Severity of Cleft Lip and Palate and Postsurgical Outcome in Non-syndromic Complete Unilateral Cleft Lip and Palate: A Pilot Study Based on Surgeon’s Perception

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the pre-operative and post-operative aesthetic outcome of patients following primary lip repair to investigate the association of the severity of the cleft deformity after NAM therapy and final surgical outcome. Materials and Methods: To assess the correlation between severity of the cleft and the primary surgery outcome, four pediatric craniofacial surgeons from the affiliated teaching hospital were asked to independently rate 156 randomized sets of photographs from 39 case of non-syndromic patients with complete unilateral cleft lip and palate who received NAM treatment.by mean of visual analogue scale. The photographs were acquired in four different time points: (T1) Pre NAM therapy, (T2) Post NAM therapy, (T3) Immediate post-operative, (T4) Late post-operative. Results: The mean of VAS score for lip and nose improved significantly after NAM therapy. There was significant correlation between NAM treatment (T2) outcome and immediate post-operative outcome (T3) for nose. There was no significant correlation between NAM treatment outcome (T2) and immediate postoperative outcome (T3) or late postoperative outcome for lip. Conclusion: Cleft deformity improved significantly after NAM therapy and this improvement led to better nasal esthetics immediate post operatively.