Evaluation of speech after correction of rhinophonia with pushback palatoplasty combined with pharyngeal flap.

A comparison is made of the preoperative and postoperative speech evaluations of 15 selected subjects who had pharyngeal flap operations combined with palatal pushback. Postoperatively, 13 of the 15 patients (86 percent) showed no abnormal nasal emission and no evidence of significant hypernasality during word production. Gross substitution errors were also corrected by the surgical repair. While the number of patients is small, this study indicates equal effectiveness of the surgical technique described--regardless of the sex, the medical diagnosis, whether the procedure was primary or secondary, or the amount of postoperative time--providing there is good function of the muscles of the soft palate.