Soft Tissue Facial Profile Characteristics Of Adolescent Patients With Unilateral Complete Cleft Lip And Palate After Surgical Treatment

OBJECTIVE:By analyzing and comparing the digital X-ray cephalo-grams of Class I skeletal pattern adolescent patients with unilateral complete cleft lip and palate adolescent patients after surgical treatment; we study the differences of facial profile characteristics between these two adolescent groups.METHODS:The panoramic digital pictures were selected from the last2years (March2010to April2012) database of the Orthodontics Department of XiangYa Hospital, Central South University. The selected patients’ages were within7years old to18years old, Han nationality, and paired in terms of age and gender.14indexes were carefully measured by digital ruler and protractor on each patient’s cephalogram by using the NIH software Image J1.45. The results were collected and analyzed by SPSS19.0.RESULTS:By using the paired T test, we noticed the unilateral complete cleft lip and palate patients have significant differences in A point lip thickness, Ls point lip thickness, Sn-Ls upper lip length, Prn-Prn’anterior nose length, Gl’-Pr-Pog’angle, Gl’-Sls-Pog’angle, Holdaway angle, Ls:Pr-Pog’length.(P<0.05)But the Li point lip thickness, B point lip thickness, Pog point lip thickness, Li-B’lower lip length, Li-Pog’lower lip length and Li: Prn-Pog’length between the two group have no significant differences.(P>0.05)CONCLUSIONS:The differences of profile characteristics between the unilateral complete cleft lip and palate patients and Skeletal Class I patients can be detected, the significant differences inferred were:1. The unilateral complete cleft lip and palate patients had thinner and shorter upper lips.2. The unilateral complete cleft lip and palate patients had more concave soft tissue facial profile.