Introduction:

The occurrence of oral clefts in the United States has been estimated as 1 in 700 births. Clefts exhibit interesting racial predilections, occurring less frequently in blacks but more so in Asians. Boys are affected by orofacial clefts more often than girls, by a ratio of 3:2. Cleft lip and palate (together) occurs about twice as often in boys as in girls, whereas isolated clefts of the palate (without cleft lip) occur slightly more often in girls. Oral clefts commonly affect the lip, alveolar ridge, and hard and soft palates. Three fourths are unilateral deformities; one fourth are bilateral. The left side is involved more frequently than the right when the defect is unilateral. The cleft may be incomplete, that is, it may not extend the entire distance from lip to soft palate.

Embryology:
During the 6th&7th weeks, the appearance of the face changes considerably. The maxillary swellings continue to grow in a medial direction and compress the medial nasal swellings toward the midline. Subsequently these swellings simultaneously merge with each other and with the maxillary swellings laterally. Hence the upper lip is formed by the two medial nasal swellings and the two maxillary swellings. The two medial swellings merge not only at the surface but also at the deeper level. The structures formed by the two merged swellings are known together as the intermaxillary segment which is composed of three components: a labial component, which forms the philtrum of the upper lip; an upper jaw component, which carries the four incisor teeth A palatal component, which forms the triangular primary palate. Above, the intermaxillary segment is continuous with the nasal septum, which is formed by the frontal prominence.

Causative factors:
Environmental factors seem to play a contributory role at the critical time of embryologic development when the lip and palatal halves are fusing. Nutritional deficiencies, radiation, several drugs, hypoxia, viruses and vitamin excesses or deficiencies can produce clefting in certain situations.

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Problems of patients with clefts:

1. DENTAL PROBLEMS:
A cleft of the alveolus can often affect the development of the primary and permanent teeth and the jaw itself. The most common problems may be related to congenital absence of teeth and, supernumerary teeth. The cleft usually extends between the lateral incisor and canine area. These teeth, because of their proximity to the cleft, may be absent; when present, they may be severely displaced so that eruption into the cleft margin is common. These teeth may also be morphologically deformed or hypo mineralized. Supernumerary teeth occur frequently, especially around the cleft margin.

2. MALOCCLUSION:
Individuals affected with cleft deformities, especially those of the palate, show skeletal discrepancies between the size, shape, and position of their jaws. Class III malocclusion, seen in most cases, is caused by many factors. A common finding is mandibular prognathism, which is frequently relative and is caused more by the remission of the maxilla than by protrusion of the mandible (i.e. ,pseudoprognathism) .Missing or extra teeth may partially contribute to the malocclusion. However retardation of maxillary growth is the factor most responsible for the malocclusion.

3. NASAL DEFORMITY:
Deformity of normal nasal architecture is commonly seen in individuals with cleft lips .If the cleft extends into the floor of the nose, the alar cartilage on that side is flared and the columella of the nose is pulled toward the no cleft side. A lack of underlying bony support to the base of the nose compounds the problem.

4. FEEDING:
Babies with cleft palates can swallow normally once the material being fed reaches the hypopharynx but have extreme difficulty producing the necessary negative pressure in their mouth to allow sucking either breast or bottle milk.

5. EAR PROBLEMS:
Children affected with a cleft of the soft palate are predisposed to middle ear infections. The reason for this becomes clears on review of the anatomy of the soft palate musculature.

6. ASSOCIATED ANOMALIES:
The child with an oral cleft is 20 times more likely to have another congenital anomaly than a normal child.

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7. SPEECH DIFFICULTIES:
Retardation of consonant sounds (p,b, t, d, k, g) is the most common finding. Because consonant sounds are necessary for the development of early vocabulary, much language activity is omitted. Hypernasality is usual in the patient with cleft of the soft palate and may remain after surgical correction. Dental malformation, malocclusion, and abnormal tongue placement may develop before the palate is closed and thus produce an articulation problem. Hearing problems contribute significantly to the many speech disorders common in patients with oral clefts.

Treatment of cleft lip and palate Timing of surgical repair:

It is tempting to correct all of the defects as soon as the baby is able to withstand the surgical procedure. The parents of a child born with a facial cleft would certainly desire this mode of treatment, eliminating all of the baby's clefts as early in life as possible. Most surgeons prefer "rule of 10" as determining when an otherwise healthy baby is fit for surgery.

RULE OF 10:
 10 weeks of age  10lb in body weight  10g/dl of hemoglobin in blood. However, because surgical correction of the cleft is an elective procedure, if any other medical condition risk the health of the baby, the cleft surgery is postponed until medical risks are minimal.

ADVANTAGES OF EARLY CLOSURE OF PALATAL DEFECTS:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Better palatal and pharyngeal muscle development once repaired. Ease of feeding. Better development of phonation skills, Better auditory tube function, Better hygiene when the oral and nasal partition is competent, and Improved psychological state for parents and baby.

DISADVANTAGES OF EARLY CLOSURE OF PALATAL DEFECTS:

1. Surgical correction is more difficult in younger children with small structures. 2. Scar formation resulting from the surgery causes maxillary growth restriction.

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The lip cleft:

Is corrected as early as is medically possible.

ADVANTAGES:
 It performs a favorable "molding" action on the distorted alveolus.  It also assists the child in feeding and is of psychological benefit.

The soft palatal cleft:

Is closed between 8 and 18 months of age. To produce a functional velopharyngeal mechanism when or before speech skills are developing.

The hard palatal cleft:

Is occasionally not repaired at the time of soft palate repair, especially if the cleft is wide. In such cases, the hard palate cleft is left open as long as possible so that maxilla growth to a significant size. Closure of the hard palatal cleft can be postponed at least until all of the deciduous dentition has erupted. This postponement facilitates the use of orthodontic appliances and allows more maxillary growth to occur before scarring from the surgery is induced. Because a significant portion of maxillary growth has already occurred by ages 4 to 5, closure of the hard palate at this time is usually performed before the child's enrollment in school.

Cheilorrhaphy
Cheilorrhaphy is the surgical correction of the cleft lip deformity. It is usually the earliest operative procedure used to correct cleft deformities and is undertaken as soon as medically possible. N.B.: The cleft of the upper lip affects the important circumoral orbicularis oris musculature. The lack of continuity of this muscle allows the developing parts of the maxilla to grow in an uncoordinated manner so that the cleft in the alveolus is accentuated. The lack of sphincteric muscle control from theorbicularis oris will cause a bilateral cleft lip to exhibit apremaxilla that protrudes from the base of the nose and produces an unsightly appearance. Thus restoration of this muscular sphincter with lip repair has a favorable effect on the developing alveolar segments.

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OBJECTIVES:
1. Functional: Restore the functional arrangement of the orbicularis oris musculature to reestablish the normal function of the upper lip. 2. Esthetical: Produce a lip that displays normal anatomic structures, such as a vermilion tubercle, Cupids bow, philtrum, and to a less extent correction of the nasal deformity resulting from the cleft lip.

SURGICAL TECHNIQUES:
(Elongate the cleft margins to facilitate closure) 1- In unilateral cases the unaffected side serves as a guide for lip length and symmetry. 2- It is important to breakup lines of the scar so that with fibrosis and contracture, deformity of the lip will be minimized. In lips closed in a linear fashion, scar contracture causes a characteristic notching of the upper lip. 3- Attention to reorienting and reuniting the musculature of the lip is of paramount importance if normal function is to be established.

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N.B.: Cheilorrhaphy procedures can restore the nasal tip. With the cleft extending through the floor of the nose, the continuity of the nasal apparatus is affected. Without the bony foundation for the alar cartilage, a collapse of the lateral aspect of the nose occurs. Thus Cheilorrhaphy is the first and one of the most important steps in correcting the nasal deformity so common in cleft patients.

Palatorrhaphy
Palatorrhaphy is usually performed in one operation, but occasionally it is performed in two. In two operations the soft palate closure is usually performed first and the hard palate closure is performed second.

OBJECTIVES:
1. Create a mechanism capable of speech and deglutition without significantly interfering with subsequent maxillary growth. 2. Creation of a competent velopharyngeal mechanism. 3. obtain a long and mobile soft palate capable of producing normal speech.

Hard palate closure:

1. The hard palate is closed with soft tissues only. Usually no effort is made to create an osseous partition between the nasal and oral cavities. 2. Use lateral relaxing incisions close to the dentition. 3. The soft tissues are incised along the cleft margin and dissected from the palatal shelves until approximation over the cleft defect is possible. 4. The soft tissues are then sutured over the cleft defect and allowed to heal. 5. The areas of bone exposed by lateral relaxing incisions are allowed to heal by secondary intention. 6. The superior aspect of the palatal flaps will reepithelialize with respiratory epithelium, because this surface is now the lining of the nasal floor. 7. When possible, it is advisable to obtain a two-layer closure Of the hard palatal cleft which necessitates that the nasal mucosa from the floor, lateral wall, and septal areas of the nose be mobilized and sutured together before the oral closure. 8. When the vomer is long and attached to the palatal shelf opposite the cleft, a mucosal flap can be raised from it and sutured to the palatal tissues on the cleft side. The denuded areas of vomer and the opposite sides of the flap where no epithelium is present will reepthelization. 9. This technique is called (The vomer flap technique) and is useful in clefts that are not wide and where the vomer is readily available for use.

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Soft palate closure:

The closure of the soft palate is technically the most difficult of the operations because: - Access is the largest problem, because the soft palate is toward the back of the oral cavity. - The combination of difficulty with light, retraction. - Fact that the clinician can work only from the oral side to correct both the oral and nasal sides of the soft palate. - clinician have to work with extremely thin atrophic tissues to produce a closure that will hold together under function while healing is progressing. The soft palate is always closed in three layers and in the same order: (1)nasal mucosa ,(2) muscle, and (3) oral mucosa. 1. The margins of the cleft are incised from the posterior end of the hard palate to at least the distal end of the uvula. 2. The nasal mucosa is then dissected free from the underlying musculature and sutured to the nasal mucosa of the opposite side. 3. The muscular layer requires special care. Because:  The musculature of the cleft soft palate is not inserted across to the opposite side but is inserted posteriorly and laterally along the margins of the hard palate.  So, These muscular insertions must be released from their bony insertions and reapproximated to those of the other sides.  This will allow the velopharyngeal mechanism have a chance to perform properly.

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N.B.; If the quantity of muscular tissue is inadequate for approximation of the musculature in the midline, the pterygoid hamular processes can be in fractured, thus releasing the tensor palatine muscles toward the midline. This maneuver is frequently necessary, especially in wide clefts.

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Alveolar Cleft Grafts:

PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH ALVEOLAR CLEFT:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Oral fluids escape into the nasal cavity. Nasal secretion drains into the oral cavity. Teeth erupt into the alveolar cleft. The alveolar segments collapse. If the cleft is large, speech is adversely affected.
1.

ADVANTAGES OF ALVEOLAR CLEFT BONE GRAFT:

They unite the alveolar segments and help prevent collapse and constriction of the dental arch, which is especially important if the maxilla has been orthodontically expanded. Alveolar cleft bone grafts provide bone support for teeth adjacent to the cleft and for those that will erupt into the area of the cleft. Closure of the oronasal fistula, which will partition the oral and nasal cavities and prevent escape of fluids between them. Augmentation of the alveolar ridge in the area of the cleft this facilitates the use of dental prosthesis by creating a more suitable supporting base. Creation of a solid foundation for the lip and alar base of the nose. alveolar cleft grafting procedure itself creates a favorable change in the nasal structure, because the tissues at the base of the nose become supported after alveolar cleft grafting, whereas before the graft they had no solid osseous foundation. Therefore the alveolar graft should be performed before nasal revisions.

2. 3. 4. 5.

TIMING OF GRAFT PROCEDURE:

The alveolar cleft graft is usually performed when the patient is between ages (6 and 10y), By this time a major portion of maxillary growth has occurred, and the alveolar cleft surgery should not adversely affect the future growth of the maxilla. It is important to have the graft in place before the eruption of the permanent canines into the cleft, thus ensuring their periodontal support. Ideally the grafting procedure is performed when one half to two thirds of the unerupted canine root has formed. Orthodontic expansion of the arch before or after the procedure is equally effective; however, some surgeons prefer to expand before bone grafting so that access into the cleft area is facilitated at surgery.

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SURGICAL PROCEDURE:
Intact mucoperiosteal flaps on each side must cover bone grafts placed into the alveolar cleft. So flaps of nasal mucosa, palatal mucosa, and labial mucosa must all be developed and sutured in a tension-free, watertight manner to prevent infection of the graft. 1- Closure of the palatal and nasal mucosa. 2- The grafts are made into a particulate consistency and are packed into the defect .The bone placed into the alveolar cleft is usually obtained from the patient's iliac bone or the cranium however; some surgeons are using allergenic bone. 3- The labial mucosa is then closed over the bone graft.

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