Pediatric patients with tongue-tie undergoing frenotomy in Mae Sot Hospital, Tak Province

Abstract

Background: Tongue-tie or ankyloglossia is the condition of short lingual frenulum orextension of the lingual frenulum to the tip of the tongue and tethering its movement. This may substantially impact on breastfeeding and laterspeech development.At present, various clinical tools have been developed to assist diagnosis making, and then determine treatment approach by expert physicians. General pediatricians play major roles in early diagnosis and treatment.
Objective: The study aimed to evaluate frenotomy trends and characteristics of patients undergoing the operation at Mae Sot Hospital
Methods: A retrospective cohort design was conducted among patients with ankyloglossia undergoing lingual frenotomy at Mae Sot Hospital from 2013-2019. Data were retrieved from the hospital database and patient’s records stored in the system for analysis.
Results: A total of 171 patients undergoing lingual frenotomy from 2013-2019 were included. Of these, males comprised the majority of 60.2% (male : female = 1.5:1). Frenotomy increased annually from 38 of 171 (22.22%) in 2018 to 55 of 171 (32.16%) in 2019. Thais comprised 72.5% of the total. Median patient age was 8.8 months [range: 9 hours to 12.2 years] Most patients (88.9%) were delivered in the hospital and 76.6% of the total were aginal births. In all, 33.9% of all patients presented limited tongue movement. The patients were detected during early neonatal period by pediatrician. The remaining 10.0% was subsequently diagnosed as having comorbidity. According to the year of birth, both Thai and minority ethnics born from 2014-2019 underwent early lingual frenotomy. Patients born from 2017-2019 had median age of 5.07 months [range: 20 hours to 2.01 years]; 84 hours [range: 10 hours to 1.65 years] and 72 hours [range: 8 hours to 29 days] on the operation date.
Conclusion: Frenotomy has grown increasingly and is performed earlier during the neonatal period.