Targeting Surgeons Decision-Making for Lip Surgery

Tufts University Boston, Boston MA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cleft lip/palate (CL/P) are among the most common of all birth defects. To correct the obvious facial disabilities of babies with CL/P, surgeons perform an initial or primary repair of the lip and nose soon after birth. Unfortunately, many patients (and caregivers) are dissatisfied with the surgical results: Patients remain with a facial disfigurement and impairment in facial soft tissue movements-particularly in facial expressive behaviors. Multiple revision surgeries during childhood and adolescence are common to improve the initial results. The psychosocial and economic burden of care on these children and their caregivers are great. Traditionally, the decision for lip revision surgery has been based on subjective assessments of nasolabial form, and less frequently, circumoral movement but without a method to quantify the facial movements/form before surgery or after surgery. To this end, we have developed an Intervention that utilizes a novel set of dynamic and static quantitative measures and a systematic subjective evaluation to quantify facial disability for the treatment planning of lip surgery and for assessing surgical outcomes. The quantitative measures include (1) 3D dynamic and statistical modeling of patients' mean facial movements and (2) 3D static facial image data, both compared with mean control movement and static image data, respectively. As a necessary second step in this formative research, using separate prospective cohorts of patients who have lip revision and lip repair surgery, we will conduct a 'proof of concept' Phase II randomized clinical trial (RCT) with the following Specific Aims. Specific Aim 1. To qualitatively assess how surgeons integrate the Intervention's objective measures and visual aids with the systematic subjective assessment in the decision-making process for the clinical surgical procedures of lip revision and lip repair. Specific Aim 2. To quantitatively assess the extent to which the Intervention changes surgeons' problem list and treatment planning goals for lip revision and lip repair. Specific Aim 3. To obtain estimates on means, variances, and intra-patient correlation, and to estimate surgeon-by-condition interaction effects for surgical outcomes under the Intervention and the standard of care or Control conditions. Ultimately, while this Phase II RCT is not a therapeutic trial in the usual sense of providing a patient with a therapy, it will be unique for craniofacial rehabilitation in that the fcus is to optimize the design of a novel assessment, improve an individual patient's diagnostic evidence base available to the surgeon for surgical planning, and evaluate whether post-surgical results are improved with the Intervention.