Velopharyngeal dysfunction: a systematic review of major instrumental and auditory-perceptual assessments

INTRODUCTION  Velopharyngeal dysfunction may cause impaired verbal communication skills in individuals with cleft lip and palate; thus, patients with this disorder need to undergo both instrumental and auditory-perceptual assessments. OBJECTIVE  To investigate the main methods used to evaluate velopharyngeal function in individuals with cleft lip and palate and to determine whether there is an association between videonasoendoscopy results and auditory-perceptual assessments. METHOD  We conducted a systematic review of the literature on instrumental and auditory-perceptual assessments. We searched the PubMed, Medline, Lilacs, Cochrane, and SciELO databases from October to November 2012. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS  We found 1,300 studies about the topic of interest published between 1990 and 2012. Of these, 56 studies focused on velopharyngeal physiology; 29 studies presented data on velopharyngeal physiology using at least 1 instrumental assessment and/or 1 auditory-perceptual assessment, and 12 studies associated the results of both types of assessments. Only 3 studies described in detail the analysis of both methods of evaluating velopharyngeal function; however, associations between these findings were not analyzed. CONCLUSION  We found few studies clearly addressing the criteria chosen to investigate velopharyngeal dysfunction and associations between videonasoendoscopy results and auditory-perceptual assessments.