New concept on the configuration with cleft lips, and the personal opinion of their repair, are reported based on the author's clinical experience of four hundred and thirty two infant cases.
1. The DEGREE of cleft lip.
CLEFT DEGREEs, which are expressed by the percentage of the cleft width, at the level of the vermilion and of the nasal floor, to the height of the mid-face, are from 0 to around 50 respectively. The critical value between complete and incomplete of the cleft is about 23.
A fine operative allowance might be performed in proportion to the degrees of the cleft.
2. The TYPE of cleft lip.
The cleft lips are regarded as a complex malformation, composed of nasal floor cleft, labial cleft, and alveolar cleft. NASAL, LABIAL, ALVEOLAR, and MIXED type are clssified, according to the predominance of locality of the cleft in this series.
The choice of operative procedure is determined by the type of cleft.
3. The FORM of cleft lip.
The INTERMEDIATE form of the cleft lip, of which laterality of the cleft are essentially bilateral are found frequentlty, in so-called unilateral group of cleft lip.
To create the symmetrical nose is rather easy, however, to make the proportional lip is difficult and should be planned carefully, in intermediate form of cleft lip.
4. The DEVIATION of tissues.
It is important to realize that the tissues of the cleft lip are deviated in various directions, horizontally in the lip, vertically in the nose, and saggitally in the alveolus.
The distorted tissues must be corrected against each tissue deviation. Specifically, to bridge the mucosal flap at the cleft alveolar edges saggitally is an essential step to obtain rational spontaneous correction of the deviated maxillae.
5. The DEFICIENCY of tissues.
The tissue deficiency in the mid-facial longitudinal region, nasal root∼ columella∼ prolabium∼ premaxilla, are defective in many cases of this series, even though they are not so severe as in DeMayer's IV-or V -group.
Various methods of tissue supplement are necessary in the adolescent age for their repair. The lipswitch graft, especially in Lambda type by the author's method, is specially efficient to afford the natural look for these deficient lips.
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