Su Yin Htun

Title: An option for the speech problem with Velopharyngeal incompetency: Palatal bone distraction osteogenesis

Abstract:

Objective:  Palatal distraction involves a palatal bone osteotomy in the form of a square “horseshoe”, which leaves the palatal nerve and vascular bundle intact. A commercially available intraoral distraction osteogenesis apparatus is used.
Discussion: During the distraction procedure the distal bone segment is repositioned posteriorly, therefore lengthening the bony palate and as such moving the soft palate posteriorly. A Stickler Syndrome patient with a surgically repaired cleft palate was referred to Facial Cleft Deformity Clinic, IAOMS Training Fellowship Centre (University of Pretoria) after he received previously repeated velopharyngeal flaps and still had a speech problem.
Speech improves with this procedure and is assessed by the communication pathologist and compared with the fluorographic examination.

Biography:

Dr. Htun earned her BDS and MDSc degrees from the University of Dental Medicine, Yangon, Myanmar and was a teaching faculty at the Teaching Hospital of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University of Dental Medicine, Yangon where she was trained for maxillofacial surgery until 2008 when she came as a recruited doctor to Jamaica. She has completed IAOMS’s Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Credentialing Course at Chile in 2011. She is a Fellow member of IAOMS in 2009 and also a member of AAOMS and BAOMS. Further more Dr.Htun was elected as Fellowship in the Academy of International Academy for Dental and Facial Esthetics (IADFE) in 2015 and Fellowship in the International College of Dentists (ICD) in 2017.
Dr. Htun is the invited speaker of AFAOMS. Her primary clinical interests include craniofacial surgery of birth defects, reconstruction and surgical management of craniofacial trauma. Publications and abstracts related to facial cleft deformity treatment are authored and co-authored.