Orofacial clefts in California: No decline in Alberta, Canada

Publicly funded healthcare costs associated with orofacial clefts for children born in Alberta, Canada between 2002 and 2018

BACKGROUND

Orofacial clefts (OFCs) include cleft palate (CP), cleft lip (CL), and cleft lip with cleft palate (CLP) and require multidisciplinary healthcare services. Alberta, Canada has a publicly funded, universal access healthcare system. This study determined publicly funded healthcare costs for children with an OFC and compared these costs to children without congenital anomalies.

METHODS

This retrospective population-based cohort analysis used the Alberta Congenital Anomalies Surveillance System to identify children born between 2002 and 2018 with an isolated OFC. They were matched 1:1 to a reference cohort based on sex and year of birth. The study population included 1614 children, from birth to 17 years of age linked to administrative databases to estimate annual inpatient and outpatient costs. Average annual all-cause costs were compared using two-sample independent t tests.

RESULTS

The mean total cleft-related costs per patient were highest for children with CLP ($74,138 CAD, standard deviation (SD) $43,447 CAD), followed by CP ($53,062 CAD, SD $74,366 CAD), and CL ($35,288 CAD, SD $49,720 CAD). The mean total all-cause costs per child were statistically significantly higher (p < .001) in children with an OFC ($56,305 CAD, SD $57,744 CAD) compared to children without a congenital anomaly ($18,600 CAD, SD $61,300 CAD).

CONCLUSIONS

Despite public health strategies to mitigate risk factors, the trend for OFCs has remained stable in Alberta, Canada for over 20 years. The costs reported are useful to other jurisdictions for comparison, and to families, healthcare professionals, service planners, and policy makers.

Co-occurring anomalies in congenital oral clefts

Oral clefts (OCs) are frequently co-occurring with other non-OC congenital anomalies. The types and the prevalence of anomalies co-occurring with OCs vary in the reported studies. The aims of this report were to study the types and the prevalence of the anomalies co-occurring with OCs in a well-defined population. The types and the prevalence of anomalies co-occurring in cases with OCs were ascertained in all terminations of pregnancy, stillbirths, and live births in 387,067 births occurring consecutively during the period 1979-2007 in the area covered by our registry of congenital anomalies which is population based, 789 cases of OCs were registered during the study period with a prevalence of 20.4 per 10,000 births, 39.5% of the cases had associated non-OC anomalies. Associated anomalies were more common in cases with cleft palate (52.4%) than in cases with cleft lip and palate (37.3%) and in cases with cleft lip only (16.8%). Chromosomal abnormalities were present in 94 (11.9%) cases including 27 trisomies 13, 15 trisomies 18, 12 22 q11.2 deletion, and 40 other chromosomal abnormalities. Nonchromosomal recognizable conditions were diagnosed in 38 cases (4.8%) including syndromes, associations, spectrums and sequences. Multiple congenital anomalies (MCAs) were present in 180 cases (22.8%). The most frequent MCA were in the musculoskeletal system (16.7%), the central nervous system (15.0%), the urogenital system (13.7%), the cardiovascular system (8.6%), and the digestive system (6.6%). The high prevalence of associated anomalies justifies a thorough screening for other congenital anomalies in cases with OCs.