EVALUATION OF PRIMARY PATHOLOGY IN PATIENTS WHO HAD BEEN OPERATED FOR VPI

VPI, which is inability of velopharyngeal sphincter closure, has many etiologies that one of the most common of them is cleft palate. In spite of palatal closure some of them will lead to VPI. Therefore we decided to evaluate which patients are more prone to this problem. A retrospective study with studing of patients who had been operated between 1996-2001 was planned and 91 patients was selected as control. From case group, 3 patients had unilat CL/P, 8 had bilat, CL/P,2 had unilat C/P and 3 had bilat, C/P but in control group, 34 unilat CL/P, 16 bilat, CP, 36 unilat CP and 5 bilat CP. Comparison between two group(unilat or bilat) showed that prevalence of VPI in bilatal Types were sighificantly more than unilatral types(P<0.05). This can be attributed to greater size of defect in bilaterals cases, but the nature of muscle in sphincter can be an ethiology too, that must be evaluated in other studies.