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Objective This study describes primary surgical reconstructions performed for children born with a cleft lip and/or palate (CL ± P) in the United Kingdom (UK). Design Data forms completed at the time of surgery included details on timing, technique, and adjuncts used during the operative period. Demographic data on participants were validated via parental questionnaires. Setting Data were obtained from the Cleft Collective, a national longitudinal cohort study. Patients Between 2015 and 2021, 1782 Cleft Collective surgical forms were included, relating to the primary reconstructions of 1514 individual children. Results The median age at primary cheiloplasty was 4.3 months. Unilateral cleft lips (UCL) were reconstructed with an anatomical subunit approximation technique in 53%, whereas bilateral cleft lips (BCL) were reconstructed with a broader range of eponymous techniques. Clefts of the soft palate were reconstructed at a median age of 10.3 months with an intravelar veloplasty in 94% cases. Clefts of the hard palate were reconstructed with a vomer flap in 84% cases in a bimodal age distribution, relating to reconstruction carried out simultaneously with either lip or soft palate reconstruction. Antibiotics were used in 96% of cases, with an at-induction-only regimen used more commonly for cheiloplasties ( P < .001) and a 5 to 7-day postoperative regime used more commonly for soft palatoplasties ( P < .001). Perioperative steroids were used more commonly in palatoplasties than cheiloplasties ( P < .001) but tranexamic acid use was equivalent ( P = .73). Conclusions This study contributes to our understanding of current cleft surgical pathways in the UK and will provide a baseline for analysis of the effectiveness of utilized protocols.

Objective : To assess the number of publications in peer-reviewed journals that are generated from the verbal presentations at the annual conference of the Craniofacial Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Design : A list of the verbal presentations (2000 to 2009) was obtained from the Craniofacial Society of Great Britain and Ireland website. Using a web-based PubMed search engine, a search was made using title, key words, and main authors. Main Outcome Measure : The primary outcome measure was the presentation's publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Secondary measures included specialty of the first author, the journal in which the article was published and its impact factor, and topic of the article. Results : Of 318 verbal presentations, 67 (21.07%) went on to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. By topic, 50.7% were surgical and 12% concerned speech. The first author was in the plastic surgical specialty in 29.9% and in either speech-language therapy or orthodontics in 17.9% each of papers. In addition, 50.7% of papers were published in the The Craniofacial-Cleft Palate Journal. The overall 2-year impact factor was 0.941. Mean lead time to publication was 29.02 months (range, 2 to 110 months). Conclusions : The publication rate is low in comparison with the rate of 44.5% given for all specialties in a Cochrane review in 2007. This may be related to the specialist nature of the subject matter or to the type of research presented at the conference and the difficulty in carrying out high-quality research on cleft lip and palate due to limited numbers and a long lead time to outcomes.