The purpose of this paper is to clarify whether the difficiency and excess of the tissue exsit on the nose and upper lip in the unoperated unilateral cleft lip patients, and to elucidate the change of tissue-volume of the nose and upper lip before and after the primary lip repair. The faicial plaster casts were made by no-pressure impression taken under endotracheal anesthesia immediately before the lip repair in 70 complete unilateral cleft lip patients and 60 incomplete unilateral cleft lip patients. In 73 out of these 130 patients, the facial plaster casts were made immediately after the lip repair by Tennison-Randall's or Millard's method.
The surface areas of the nose and upper lip were measured by Huddart's method adapting a piece of soft resin sheet to the faicial plaster cast using pressure moulding technique. The surface areas of the dorsum nasi and nose on the cleft side were significantly greater than those on the noncleft side in both complete and incomplete cleft lip. On the contrary, the surface areas of the nasal ala, skin portion of lateral upper lip, philtrum skin portion of upper lip and skin portion of whole lateral upper lip were significantly smaller on the cleft side than on the noncleft side in both complete and incomplete cleft lip. The surface area of the skin portion of whole lateral upper lip was distinctly smaller on the cleft side than on the noncleft side in complete cleft lip, but these found no difference in the incomplete cases. The surface areas of the nasal ala, nose, skin portion of lateral upper lip and skin portion of upper lip on both the cleft and noncleft sides, the skin portion of whole lateral upper lip and philtrum on the cleft side, and the dorsum nasi and nose on the noncleft side were significantly narrower in complete cleft lip than in incomplete cleft lip. The surface areas of the dorsum nasi and nose on the cleft side were significantly greater in complete cleft lip than in incomplete cleft lip.
Immediately after the operation, the surface areas of the nasal ala, nose on the cleft side and the philtrum on the noncleft side decreased distinctly in complete cleft lip, but the surface areas of the nasal ala on noncleft side, skin portion of lateral upper lip and skin portion of upper lip on both the cleft and noncleft side, and the philtrum and skin protion of whole upper lip on the cleft side increased clearly in complete cleft lip. Postoperatively, however, the surface areas of the dorsum nasi, nose and skin portion of whole lateral upper lip on the cleft side decreased distinctly in the incomplete cleft lip, but the surface area of the philtrum on the cleft side increased. The same tendency of change of the surface area on each portion was observed in both Tennison-Randall's and Millard's method, but the amount of change of the surface area was different in those methods.
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