The historical background, surgical technique, and indications for posterior pharyngeal palatoplasty were discussed in a previous publication.1
This is a preliminary report of the results obtained in 29 patients on whom this operation was performed. The patients ranged from 4 to 28 years of age at the time of operation. The average age was 10 years. Of these 29 patients, 18 were males and 11 were females.
The patients who had repaired cleft palates had an average lapse of 7.6 years prior to the pharyngeal flap operation. The extremes ranged from 3 months to 20 years.
The indications for the operation in our series can be summarized as follows:
Short palate in patients with previously repaired cleft palate—23 patients
Congenitally short palate associated with unrepaired cleft palate—2 patients
Congenitally short palate only—3 patients
Congenital paralysis of the soft palate—1 patient
There were five postoperative complications in this series, consisting of