Hearing impairments in adults with cleft palate:asystematicscoping review

Introduction Otitis mediawith effusion is found in almost every patient with cleft palate. Arisk factor for permanent conductive hearing lossis recurring otitis media which is commonly found in cleft palate patients. Several studieshave been conductedto measure the extent of hearing loss in childrenwith cleft palate.Hearing problemsdue to otitis mediaoften persist into adulthood.Thus, it is of interest to see if there are any existing studies onhearing impairments inadultcleft palatepatients. Objective The purpose of this study is tosummarize theexisting literatureon hearing impairments in adult patients with cleft palate and to map the characteristics of the studies found. Method A scoping reviewprotocolproposedby Joanna Briggs Institutewas usedto synthesizeand summerizethe published literaturesearchedinthe PubMed database. Syndromal cleft palates were excluded from this study. Results Onereviewer went through 11full-text articlesthatwere considered relevant.It was possible toidentify five different key areas of research among the included studies. Conclusions It wasfound that there is literature available on this topic,but the heterogeneity of the studies made it impossible to compare the charted data betweenthe studies. We identifieda need for longitudinal studies on this topic and suggest more standardization withregard tothe definitions of cleft palate and hearing impairment