Racial Variations in Velopharyngeal and Craniometric Morphology in Children: An Imaging Study

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine craniometric and velopharyngeal anatomy among young children (4-8 years of age) with normal anatomy across Black and White racial groups. Method: Thirty-two healthy children (16 White and 16 Black) with normal velopharyngeal anatomy participated and successfully completed the magnetic resonance imaging scans. Measurements included 11 craniofacial and 9 velopharyngeal measures. Results: Two-way analysis of covariance was used to determine the effects of race and sex on velopharyngeal measures and all craniometric measures except head circumference. Head circumference was included as a covariate to control for overall cranial size. Sex did not have a significant effect on any of the craniometric measures. Significant racial differences were demonstrated for face height. A significant race effect was also observed for mean velar length, velar thickness, and velopharyngeal ratio. Conclusion:The present study provides separate craniofacial and velopharyngeal values for young Black and White children. Data from this study can be used to examine morphological variations with respect to race and sex.

A Computational Model Quantifies the Effect of Anatomical Variability on Velopharyngeal Function

“…One study demonstrated a significant gender effect for VP muscles among an adult population ). These findings were not observed in a prepubertal child population (N = 34), demonstrating that gender effects appear to be dependent on age (Kollara, Perry, & Hudson, 2014). Significant variation in VP muscle anatomy compared with noncleft anatomy has been associated with hypernasal speech among adults with repaired cleft palate (Ha, Kuehn, Cohen, & Alperin, 2007).…”

Examining Age, Sex, and Race Characteristics of Velopharyngeal Structures in 4- to 9-Year-Old Children Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging

“…In the present study, cranial size correlated with 11 of 17 variables. Kollara et al (2016) also demonstrated that cranial measures were correlated to the height and weight of the child. Qualitative observations of the MRI data across participants displayed a uniform cohesive levator muscle sling with no midline septum separation of levator muscle bundles as they enter the velum.…”

“…An a priori power analysis (assuming equal variance, a¼ 0.05, with at least 80% power) using variances reported in the literature indicated that 14 participants per race and sex group were needed to reach statistically significant comparisons (Perry et al, 2016). We targeted the age range of 4 to 9 years because this is the typical age at which secondary surgery in cleft palate is often considered and is the time a child is often assessed for resonance and to provide a comparison to current child data in MRI of the velopharynx (Tian et al, 2010a(Tian et al, , 2010bKollara et al, 2016). Vorperian et al (2011) used a 5-year age span to examine sexual dimorphism of vocal tract structures and further cautioned sex comparisons across a decade given the known variations in growth rate and growth trends between males and females.…”

“…These findings may have implications on particular horizontal measures used in the present study, which we will describe in more detail. We expanded the sample size from the prior comparative study on sexual dimorphism among 32 children (Kollara et al, 2016) to include 85 children, which enabled sufficient power for analyses.…”

Growth Effects on Velopharyngeal Anatomy From Childhood to Adulthood

“…Variables used in this study were selected based on three comparable MRI studies examining sexual dimorphism among adult (Perry et al, 2016) and child participants (Kollara et al, 2016;Perry et al, 2018). Definitions and methods for measures used in this study were consistent with studies of velopharyngeal analyses using MRI (Ettema, Kuehn, Perlman, & Alperin, 2002;Perry et al, 2016;Tian & Redett, 2009).…”