Thornton Annie R, Montgomery Emily A, Graham M Elise, Riley Charles A, Lawlor Claire M
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
London Health Sciences Centre Children's Hospital, London, Ontario, Canada.
Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2025 Aug;173(2):324-331. doi: 10.1002/ohn.1264. Epub 2025 May 14.
Ankyloglossia and lingual frenotomy in young children and infants remains an area of debate, with a body of research with poor quality-but increasing number-of studies, a trend that has continued into the present day. To systematically review the published literature to identify the number, type, and quality of studies on the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of ankyloglossia.
In this Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses systematic review, a literature search of PubMed, Embase, and Ovid MEDLINE was conducted in 2024 using keywords related to ankyloglossia and frenotomy.
Studies from 2017 to 2024 were assessed by two independent reviewers. Articles were included if they focused on ankyloglossia in children and in the English language.
Overall, 462 articles were included for full-text extraction, of which cohort studies were the most common (179, 38.7%), and randomized controlled trials (RCTs; 13, 2.8%) were among the least common. Studies on different frenotomy techniques were common, despite no evidence suggesting that no intervention may be superior. There was an overall lack of study endpoints with objective measures such as breastfeeding duration or infant growth rates postprocedure. Despite the presence of several classification systems for ankyloglossia, none of those described in the literature focuses primarily on function as opposed to appearance or other factors.
This systematic review provides an update demonstrating the continued exponential rise of publications focused on ankyloglossia and lingual frenotomy without a rise in evidence clarifying the controversies surrounding these important topics. Future studies in this area should be quality RCTs with meaningful outcome measures.
婴幼儿舌系带过短及舌系带切开术仍是一个存在争议的领域，尽管相关研究质量欠佳，但数量不断增加，这种趋势一直持续至今。系统回顾已发表的文献，以确定有关舌系带过短评估、诊断和治疗的研究数量、类型及质量。
在这项遵循系统评价与Meta分析的首选报告项目的系统评价中，2024年使用与舌系带过短和舌系带切开术相关的关键词，对PubMed、Embase和Ovid MEDLINE进行了文献检索。
由两名独立的审阅者评估2017年至2024年的研究。如果文章聚焦于儿童舌系带过短且为英文，则纳入。
总体而言，462篇文章被纳入全文提取，其中队列研究最为常见（179篇，占38.7%），而随机对照试验最少见（13篇，占2.8%）。尽管没有证据表明不干预可能更优，但关于不同舌系带切开术技术的研究很常见。总体缺乏诸如术后母乳喂养持续时间或婴儿生长速率等客观指标的研究终点。尽管存在几种舌系带过短的分类系统，但文献中描述的这些系统均未主要关注功能而非外观或其他因素。
本系统评价表明，关注舌系带过短和舌系带切开术的出版物持续呈指数级增长，但在澄清围绕这些重要主题的争议方面，证据并未增加。该领域未来的研究应是具有有意义结局指标的高质量随机对照试验。
