How to manage Cleft Palate and Lip Scar? - Dr. Surindher D S A

Many people ask us how we manage the scars of cleft lip and palate patients. There are many issues when it comes to how scar is formed and how it will be in the long term. There is the skin itself, then the muscle underlying and the cartilage, and any other supporting structures underneath, all contribute to firming a scar of a cleft lip patient. The cleft palate patients are mostly related to problems with function. If the scarring is too much then the palate will not move properly and your speech is affected. that means cosmetically it doesn’t cause any problems but speech wise and function wise it causes problems. So if the scar is tight or if the palate is tight, then we might have to do a revision of the scar to release the muscles so that the palate moves properly and you get an adequate length so that the speech improves. Speech does not improve if it is done too late in the adulthood because the process of the brain has learned to speak in the wrong way, the benefits are no too much but because of the gap which is now reduced after the revision surgery, the speech is improved but it is no fully normal. When it comes to the lip scar, there are various factors. Most of the cleft lip surgeries are done when the child is young, that is at 3 months or 6 months or a year and as the child grows, the tissues stretch and as the tissues stretch, the scar is also going to stretch. The best way to get a good scar is to do the right surgery at the proper time. If all the tissues all the muscle, all the components of the cleft lip have been brought to the proper position, then the scar will be good. The scar problems happens as the child grows old because the child tissues gets stretched, the child is growing, this way the scars see a gap. So invariably at the age of 18 or 20, you might have to do a scar revision again where the wide scar is again thinned out and brought together so that the line is smaller. Sometimes there might be some muscles discrepancies on one side or the other so that has to be brought together and corrected. Whatever said and done, there is some sigmta of the cleft lip which is in the form of a scar which cannot be avoided.