Successful correction of velopharyngeal stress incompetence in musicians playing wind instruments

Abstract

Two professional musicians who played wind instruments developed velopharyngeal stress incompetence which prevented them from generating the high intraoral pressures required to play their instruments. In both cases, we did a V-Y pushback with a superiorly-based pharyngeal flap. At 1 1/2 and two years postoperatively, both patients remain free of velopharyngeal incompetence and are actively engaged in their musical careers.