Cleft Palate Repair in Patients with Cerebral Palsy: A Systematic Review Highlighting an Evidence Gap

Background: Cleft palate and cerebral palsy (CP) both impair feeding, swallowing, and speech. Palatoplasty remains the standard surgical intervention for cleft palate, but no study has synthesized outcomes in this population Methods: We systematically searched PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, and CENTRAL from inception to 4 September 2025. We will include peer-reviewed studies that reported outcomes of palatoplasty in patients with both cleft palate and CP. Two reviewers will independently screen, extract data, and assess risk of bias. We prespecified narrative synthesis and meta-analysis if homogeneous studies were available. Results: The search yielded 180 records; after removing duplicates, we screened 174 titles and abstracts and excluded all due to missing CP subgroup data or absence of palatoplasty. No study fulfilled the eligibility criteria. Conclusions: This systematic review found no eligible studies reporting outcomes of palatoplasty in patients with cleft palate and CP. The absence of evidence defines a critical knowledge gap. Clinicians must currently rely on indirect data and multidisciplinary judgment when managing this population. Future research should integrate CP comorbidity into cleft registries and pursue multicenter studies to clarify perioperative risk, functional outcomes, and long-term speech and feeding benefits. Level of Evidence: I