Eighteen-Year Follow-Up of 160 Consecutive Individuals Born With Unilateral Cleft Lip or Cleft Lip and Alveolus Treated by the Oslo Cleft Lip and Palate Team

Should left- and right-sided unilateral cleft lip and palate patients be grouped together when reporting the outcomes?

OBJECTIVES

Investigate associations between cleft laterality in patients with non-syndromic unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) and oral-health, dental-arch, speech, audiological, psychological and nasolabial-aesthetic outcomes.

METHODS

Secondary data analysis of the outcomes of 5-year-old children with non-syndromic complete UCLP identified from three studies: Cleft Collective (n = 155), Cleft Care UK (CCUK) (n = 266) and Clinical Standards Advisory Group (CSAG) study (n = 238). Outcome measures included occlusal assessment using the 5-year-old's index score, speech intelligibility rating using the CAPS-A Audit tool, audiological assessment using pure tone audiometry, nasolabial aesthetic assessment using the Asher-McDade tool, oral-health assessment using decayed, missing, filled teeth scores and parent-reported outcomes. Logistic regression with adjustment for age, sex and index-of-multiple-deprivation scores were performed.

RESULTS

No differences were found in patient-reported outcomes between the left and right clefts in the Cleft Collective study. From the CCUK study, right clefts had poorer speech (n = 236; 95% CI 1.09, 3.42; and P = .03) and hearing outcomes (n = 211; 95% CI 1.03, 3.43; P = .04). In the CSAG study, patients with left clefts were more likely to be teased (n = 213; 95% CI 0.26, 0.85; and P = .01).

CONCLUSION

Weak associations between cleft laterality, speech, hearing and psychological outcomes were found, however the findings were inconsistent across the studies. This study contributes to evidence of associations between laterality and outcomes in children born with UCLP.

Cleft Laterality Dental Arch Relationship Outcomes for Children with Unilateral Cleft Lip and Palate in New Zealand

OBJECTIVES

To investigate cleft laterality dental arch relationship outcomes of children with non-syndromic complete unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) in New Zealand.

DESIGN

A retrospective nationwide study.

SETTINGS

Virtual 3D orthodontic study models collected prior to undertaking secondary alveolar bone grafting.

PARTICIPANTS

A total of 104 patients with UCLP (L = 80: R = 24).

OUTCOME MEASURES

Four calibrated assessors used the GOSLON Yardstick and 100 mm Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) to score the randomised models on 2 separate assessment sessions. Weighted Kappa were used to determine the intra/inter-rater reliability for the GOSLON and correlations for the VAS.

RESULTS

Intra-rater reliability ranged from 0.57-0.88 (GOSLON) and 0.45-0.93 (VAS). Inter-rater reliability ranged from 0.62-0.86 (GOSLON) and 0.64-0.93 (VAS).GOSLON scores for the left UCLP were 31.2% for good/very good; 26.3% for fair; 42.5% for poor/very poor while the right UCLP scored 8.3% for good/very good; 37.5% for fair; 54.2% for poor/very poor. The mean VAS for left and right UCLP were 53.4 (sd 22.5) and 44.6 (sd 17.1) respectively. Neither the GOSLON nor VAS differences reached statistical significance (both P = .08).

CONCLUSIONS

From a clinical perspective right UCLP had worse dental arch relationship outcomes, however, these differences failed to reach statistical significance. Further studies using larger sample sizes are required to determine if cleft laterality is an important consideration when investigating UCLP dental arch outcomes.