Abstract
A clinico-statistical investigation of 134 outpatients (1.3 % total outpatients) who visited our clinic to undergo a primary repair of cleft lip and/or cleft palate from 1985 to 1990 was carried out.
The following results were obtained:
1) Cleft morphology was classified to three categories: cleft lip (35.8%), cleft lip with palate (38.8%) and cleft palate alone (25.4%). All types of clefts were more frequently observed in females and the sex ratio of each cleft was 1: 1.4 for cleft lip,1 1.2 for cleft lip with palate, and 1: 2.4 for cleft palate, respectively. In both cases of cleft lip and cleft lip with palate, unilateral cleft on the left side was more predominant (58.3% for cleft lip,46.2% for cleft lip with palate) than other types of clefts.
2) The common congenital malformations associated with clefts were oral organs abnormalitie s or limbs abnormalities. The average incidence of cleft lip and/or cleft palate associated malformations was 13.4%, with the highest percentage 26.5% for cleft palate alone in the three types of cleft.
3) Incidence of artificial abortion for the patient mothers was 9.6%, which is about 1.7 times control, but the rate of patient mothers experiences to have fetal or prenatal deaths (10.4%) was not significantly different from the control.
4) The recurrenc e of the similar diseases among the parents and siblings was higher in the cleft lip group (11.1%) than in the cleft palate alone (8.8%). However, when the recurrence was compared including uncles and aunts, the cleft palate alone showed higher values (20.6%) than the cleft lip group.
5) The early repair of cleft lip was performed since 1985, which resulted in the earlier visit of the patients to our clinic. In 1990, the operation for cleft lip was performed at 50.2 days after birth in average, and 76% cleft lip patients visited our clinic within the first two weeks after birth.
