Spires attends the International Congress on Cleft Lip & Palate and Related Craniofacial Anomalies in Kyoto, Japan
Spires were proud to deploy an enthusiastic and excited team of clinicians to Kyoto, Japan, on the 20-24th October 2025 to attend the International Cleft Congress that is held every four years. The conference theme ‘Looking for Harmony and Consensus in Comprehensive Cleft Care and Collaborative Studies’ was evident throughout the event, with a strong emphasis on multidisciplinary collaboration.
The team confidently delivered several well-received oral presentations: Marc Swan discussed his audited outcomes from 1,000 consecutive cleft operations over the past decade; Helen Travess presented a novel multimodal assessment approach to evaluate alveolar bone graft outcomes; Matt Hotton explored the relationship between parental and child anxiety in cases of cleft lip and/or palate; and Lucy McAndrew reported on speech surgery outcomes in 60 consecutive bilateral buccinator flap cases. Additionally, Matt took part in a symposium on building harmony in mental health care and both Matt and Lucy served as session chairs during the Congress. Marc also presented on a contemporary classification system for cleft lip and palate that facilitates more nuanced audit and research and futureproofs for the use of predictive AI algorithms in cleft care.
The event also provided an excellent opportunity to reconnect with numerous plastic surgery colleagues who previously trained at Spires, including Serena Martin, Matthew Langford, Nitisha Narayan, and Lucy Lester. A number of our past Fellows presented on research that they undertook whilst at Spires – with Matt extoling the utility of re-harvesting cancellous bone graft from the same iliac crest donor site for staged alveolar bone reconstruction, and Lucy appealing for practitioners to exclude a cleft palate when examining for ankyloglossia in infants presenting with feeding difficulties based on a 15-year review of delayed detection of cleft palate at Spires
The team thoroughly enjoyed networking with cleft teams from across the world; the fireworks at the gala dinner set over a backdrop of Kyoto’s north mountainside were a particular highlight. They made the most of their time in Japan – experiencing the country’s renowned hospitality, enjoying sensational cuisine, and visiting numerous cultural landmarks including shrines and temples, with some even venturing as far as Mount Fuji!