Abstract
In addition to the irregularities of the tooth size, shape or number which are of frequent occurence in cleft palate, the severe displacement or the abnormal inclination and the rotation of tooth is found around the cleft area.
This study was undertaken in order to determine the incidence of irregularities of the central incisor, lateral incisor and canine in cleft lip and alveolus with or without cleft palate cases, and also to attempt to establish a proper orthodontic management for the abnormal teeth.
A total of 145 cases with Hellman's dental stage III A ∼ IV A was studied. This sample included 19 unilateral cleft lip cases,4 bilateral cleft lip cases,98 unilateral cleft lip and palate cases, and 24 bilateral cleft lip and palate cases. Patient records were obtained from the file of the Department of Orthodontics,, Tokyo Medical and Dental University.
The central incisor exhibited the high incidence of the abnormal dental axis, such as lingual tip, tip toward the cleft and rotation, and only 2.1% normalcy in the unilateral cleft lip and palate cases. The lateral incisor exhibited the high incidence of missing or hypoplastic variations, and 27.8% normalcy in the unilateral cleft lip cases.
The canine exhibited the abnormal dental axis, such as toward the cleft and rotation, but higher incidence of normalcy than the central incisor and the lateral incisor. The management of these abnormal teeth were as follows; extraction or leaving as it was were limited to 8 cases, orthodontic tooth movement have been attempted on the rest of cases (137 cases) keeping the tooth materials to gain the rigid support for prosthetics.
We concluded that the management of abn ormal teeth must be considered as a part of oral habilitation, the extraction of the teeth closest to a cleft leads to the disadvantage for the prosthodontic treatment.
