Objective: The inaugural Cleft Summit aimed to unite experts and foster interdisciplinary collaboration, seeking a collective understanding of velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) management.
Design: An interactive debate and conversation between a multidisciplinary cleft care team on VPI management.
Setting: A two-hour discussion within a four-day comprehensive cleft care workshop (CCCW).
Participants: Thirty-two global leaders from various cleft disciplines.
Interventions: Cleft Summit that allows for meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge exchange.
Main outcome measures: Ability to reach consensus on a unified statement for VPI management.
Results: Participants agreed that a patient with significant VPI and a dynamic velum should first receive a surgery that lengthens the velum to optimize patient outcome. A global, multicenter prospective study should be done to test this hypothesis.
Conclusion: The 1st Cleft Summit successfully distilled global expertise into actionable best-practice guidelines through iterative discussions, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and paving the way for a transformative multi-center prospective study on VPI care.
Keywords: cleft lip and palate; cleft palate; evidence-based practice; nasality; palatal development; prospective study; quality improvement; speech assessment; speech development; speech production; velopharyngeal dysfunction.