WOFAPS 2025 8th World Congress of Pediatric Surgery

Anna Chiara Corriero, Felicity Vidya Mehendale

University of Edinburgh

Purpose: Orofacial clefts (OFC) are among the most common congenital conditions, affecting over 8 million newborns annually. They have lifelong impacts—nutritional, educational, and psychosocial—requiring multidisciplinary approaches, which include surgical intervention in paediatric ages. In 2010, the World Health Organization passed a resolution to strengthen global responses to congenital conditions, aligning with the 2016 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be met by 2030. Our research evaluated how well represented SDGs are in OFC publications.

Methodology: A Python script developed by Elsevier was used to conduct a comprehensive keyword search and content analysis of OFC-related articles (1842-2024). The script inferred SDG themes from the content. The study focused on SDG mentions, thematic relevance, and World Bank country income classification.

Results: Of 39176 publications, 5598(14%) referenced at least one SDG, with 6069 unique mentions. 87% were linked to author country income group. Unsurprisingly, Goal 3 “Good Health” was the most cited (4255 references). Table-1 shows SDG17-Partnerships being mentioned more frequently by low- and middle-income countries, while SDG10-Reduced Inequalities and SDG2-Nutrition are mentioned less frequently in high income countries. This shows diverse research OFC-related priorities globally.

Table-1: Top 3 most frequently mentioned SDGs (%) by country income groups.

Conclusions: These findings highlight how partnership, nutrition and education represent different OFC-related challenges and priorities based on country income. This can guide paediatric surgical care worldwide, with the objective of achieving the SDGs by 2030 – aiming to address diverse patients’ needs globally through OFC care.