Hypodontia in children with various types of clefts

The prevalence of hypodontia in children with clefts, both inside and outside the cleft region, and the possible association between the side of the cleft and the side of the missing teeth were studied using radiographs of 278 patients with cleft lip, cleft palate, or both (158 boys and 120 girls), age 5 to 18 years (mean age 10.4 years). A hypodontia prevalence of 77% (excluding third molars) was found for the total cleft sample. This was significantly higher, both statistically and clinically, than the incidence of hypodontia reported for noncleft populations, and considerably higher than the prevalence reported in other studies of children with clefts. The maxillary permanent lateral incisors were the teeth most frequently missing on the cleft side (259 teeth) followed by the maxillary (47 teeth) and mandibular (23 teeth) second premolars, in both boys and girls. The teeth that were most often missing on the noncleft side were the maxillary second premolars (12 teeth), followed by the maxillary lateral incisors (10 teeth) and mandibular second premolars (6 teeth). Hypodontia of both the maxillary lateral incisors and second premolars was found more frequently on the left side, which also has a higher frequency of clefting.