Weight Gain of Infants with Robin Sequence Treated Nonsurgically Using the Stanford Orthodontic Airway Plate (SOAP): 1-Year Follow-Up

HyeRan Choo; Alexis S Davis; Lisa C Bain; HyoWon Ahn

doi:10.1177/10556656241233239

Weight Gain of Infants with Robin Sequence Treated Nonsurgically Using the Stanford Orthodontic Airway Plate (SOAP): 1-Year Follow-Up

Cleft Palate Craniofac J. 2024 Feb 19:10556656241233239. doi: 10.1177/10556656241233239. Online ahead of print.

Authors

HyeRan Choo¹, Alexis S Davis², Lisa C Bain², HyoWon Ahn^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Surgery, Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Neonatal and Pediatric Craniofacial Airway Orthodontics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
² Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
³ Department of Orthodontics, School of Dentistry, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea.

PMID: 38373407
DOI: 10.1177/10556656241233239

Abstract

Objective: To identify weight gain trends of infants with Robin sequence (RS) treated by the Stanford Orthodontic Airway Plate treatment (SOAP).

Design: Retrospective longitudinal cohort study.

Setting: Single tertiary referral hospital.

Patients: Eleven infants with RS treated with SOAP.

Interventions: Nonsurgical SOAP.

Main outcome measures: Body weight, Weight-for-age (WFA) Z-scores, and WFA percentiles at birth (T0), SOAP delivery (T1), SOAP graduation (T2), and 12-months old (T3).

Results: Between T0 and T1, the weight increased but the WFA percentile decreased from 36.5% to 15.1%, and the Z-score worsened from -0.43 to -1.44. From T1 to T2, the percentile improved to 22.55% and the Z-score to -0.94. From T2 to T3, the percentile and the Z-scores further improved to 36.59% and -0.48, respectively.

Conclusions: SOAP provided infants experiencing severe respiratory distress and oral feeding difficulty with an opportunity to gain weight commensurate with the WHO healthy norms without surgical intervention.

Keywords: Pierre Robin sequence; cleft palate; glossoptosis; infant obstructive sleep apnea; infant orthopedics; oral feeding difficulty‌; retrognathia‌; upper airway obstruction.