Cephalometric Evaluation of Cleft Patients by Delaire and Bergen Analysis
Description
The clinical sample consists of 217 patients of Western European descent with different types of non-syndromal cleft formation: unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP, n=62), bilateral cleft lip and palate (BCLP, n=78) and isolated cleft palate (CP, n=77). All patients had been treated according to the concept of late palate closure (lip closure during first six month of life and palatal operation in the fourth year of life). Patients had undergone dentofacial orthodontic and orthopedic therapy, but no orthognathic surgery had been performed before the cephalometric radiographs were taken. To ensure that most craniofacial growth had already occurred, only subjects with cervical vertebral maturation stage CS-5 or CS-6 were included in the study. The craniofacial morphologies of the patients were compared to the normative values from population means using the Bergen cephalometric analysis and assessed for harmonic craniofacial relations using the whole-skull analysis by Delaire. Regardless of the type of cephalometric analysis used, fundamentally comparable aspects of craniofacial morphology were examined, for which equivalent results were obtained. The cleft patients studied showed a retroposition of the maxilla and mandible, as well as the tendency towards an increased lower facial height and enlarged cranial base angle.