Surgical Treatments for Velopharyngeal Insufficiency in Patients with Cleft Palate

The velopharyngeal mechanism is a muscular valve extending from the posterior bony palate to the posteriorpharynx, which congenitally disrupted in cleft palate deformity. Velopharyngeal insufficiency(VPI), definedas the inability to completely close the velopharyngeal sphincter that separates the oropharynx and the naso-pharynx. Despite primary palatoplasty, VPI can be remained and cause the problems of so called “cleft palate speech”. To treat the cleft palate speech, surgery plays an definitive role in combined with the speech therapy.In this paper, the author introduces various surgical methods of pharyngoplasty and their clinical significanceswith appropriate cases.